The mysterious Deluna Heir
by HHKath
Summary: After a tragedy occurs, Fine returns home only to find the strange boy who also survived living next to her. As she learns more and more about him, she is simultaneously drawn to and afraid of him. After all, how on earth did he manage to survive? And what is he hiding from her? FxS
1. Chapter 1

Sorry for not posting for so long, but I had my public exams (which are now OVER!)

Disclaimer: I do not own Fushigiboshi no Futagohime or any of its characters

Chapter 1

I opened my eyes. Immediately, the white ceiling confused me. At home, ceilings were always pink or blue, or pale yellow, and I would always wake up to a lamp the shape of a sunflower.

Then there was the smell: the ghastly odour of antiseptic that reminded me to injections and cadavers, and animals being dragged out of the tanks of glassy liquid, stiff and moribund. It was too clean, way too clean, and it eradicated everything alive.

Then there was the silence. In mornings, I would wake up to the screech of the alarm clock, before noticing the humming of the microwave and the annoying chirp right outside the window, accompanied by my sisters' yawn. Some years ago, before we moved to the new house, there was also the gentle rolling of the grandfather clock that used to unnerve me whenever I went past it. But in this room, there was no sound, not even a ticking clock. I strained to hear something, and could only make out a faint sound of dripping water.

And then there was a face. Dad sat absolutely immobile, staring ahead but not seeing. He reminded me of the cadaver, dead with a hollow heart. He frightened me.

"Where's Rein?" I asked feebly. He sat unmoved. "Where's mum?"

Only then did I realise I was bound to the bed by numerous wires. Around my face, my arms, my feet, and though I couldn't see to make sure, my torso which was covered by the blanket, bandages were wrapped over and over again.

Slowly, as though he had to use every last ounce of his energy to speak, Dad said, "There was a fire…"

And then I remembered what had happened.

It didn't take me long to recover, because I managed to escape the house in time. Before long, I was packing my belongings into a bag that my dad brought, and was folding meticulously along the creases of my shirt. "Got everything?" he asked casually. I murmured in response.

I knew we were both dreading to go back to the house. Most of the time, dad came to visit after work, and stayed past visitor's hours, just to avoid returning to an empty house filled with pictures and memories of Rein and Mum. As if staring at me and being forced constantly to acknowledge that the fire had happened was better.

Dad strolled out of the room, allowing me to take sweet time in folding and refolding my clothes, lining the edges together and crumpling them because my hands trembled. The words 'don't go' dried up in my throat. But he was gone already.

Alone, the nightmares flocked to attack despite being daytime. Scenes of devils and monsters and cars chasing me, Rein and mum flashed before my eyes, like they do at night, before inevitably blurring with my memories. Suddenly, there was an ablaze lion running towards us, and then the lion morphed into a fireball, the fireball into a deck of cards, and eventually the whole outline of the mansion appeared, luminescent in the dark night.

I was out in the garden. My right sleeve was aflame, my legs badly burnt, but still capable of running away. Yet I wasn't running away. I paused beside the plum trees on the boulevard, my head cocked to one side. Something was amiss. What was it? Think, Fine, think carefully. I peered at the windows on the upper floors of the mansion, trying to figure out what I had left in the guest bedroom. It was something precious, something I cherished enough to stop escaping and looking for help, something…and then a molten figure smacked itself against the glass.

That was the point when I woke up.

After the short drive from the hospital, I held my breath as Dad retrieved the keys to the front door. The lawn had stayed the same, I repeated again and again to myself, the lawn is still here. I tried to trace the silhouette of every strand of grass, every small weed poking out from underneath the bushes, as an effort to distract myself, but my sight became blurry all of a sudden and the grass and weeds all became one blob of green.

"Home sweet home," announced dad placidly. He disappeared into the hallway. Outside, I gazed into the void framed by the front door, which contrasting to the bright, sunny day, was more opaque and menacing than I had thought possible. Through the front door, then what? Then I would be confronted by the ghosts of Rein and Mum, lingering in photos and at tables and on sofas. They would be there wherever I looked. And even when I tried not to look, they would appear in my dreams as molten figures stuck to the glass window.

Timorously, I stepped into my home, and gasped. I did not recognize the place immediately. Sections of the wallpaper were stripped away, and the tumble of shoes and umbrellas by the door was instead replaced with cardboard box upon cardboard box. In the living room, the shelves were mostly dismantled, and I had to leap over heaps of books and files to reach the sofa, which was devoid of all the cushions Rein and I used to cuddle with. Turning to Dad, I took note of the sagging skin and dark circles under his eyes, and realized they weren't only caused by the tragedy. His gaunt frame stooped in the doorway, solemnly gazing at the dining room table, which was still intact.

In an effort to ease the pain of two deaths in the family, Dad tried to remove all evidence that the deceased once existed.

The deceased. The word was stuck in my throat again.

Wordlessly, we moved to the first floor. He opened the door of the study, where a makeshift bed with a mattress was squeezed into the room. "You can sleep here if you want," he spoke with the formality of a landlord introducing a stranger to his house.

"How about you then?" I asked.

"I'm fine with staying in my own room."

"So am I," I uttered. Somehow, lies didn't stick my throat.

"By the way, Aaron and Camelia want to visit. Are you okay with that?"

I nodded, and then Dad left for his room

Aaron and Camelia Jewell are our neighbours. Weeks ago, they had invited us to a holiday at their cousin's mansion, which we agreed, with Dad joining us later as he had to finish off some report of his. On the second night, they suggested that we watch a play in town together, but the rest of us, too weary to accompany the energetic family, decided to stay behind. It took some time for Rein to persuade Bright to join his family and leave her behind.

And then there was a fire.

I wandered down the stairs to the living room window. From there, I could see the Jewell household, their rhododendrons gleaming in the afternoon sun. Everything was cheery as usual.

They only visited twice, bringing flowers and cookies and words of comfort, but their presence irked me and I made it clear to them. Only Bright appeared to understand how I feel. He looked haunted on both visits, his lips stretched thin, shoulders drooped. I was reminded of a chance encounter of him and Rein after school one day: the blue-haired girl and the blonde boy laughing, holding hands as they walked across the park, blissfully unaware that I was grinning while trailing behind them.

That's when I started to feel guilty of surviving.

Their car pulled into the driveway. From the passenger seat, a lanky boy with dark blue hair stepped out. The first thing he did was to gaze across the street, his blue eyes staring at me with disquieting intensity. "The Jewells have brought a stranger home," I told Dad.

"Ah, yes," he wiped his hands on his jeans. "That'll be the Deluna boy, called Shade I think. He was the only other survivor besides you."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Author's note: I've decided to remove the 'romance' genre because this story really isn't and shouldn't be considered as romantic.

Altezza greeted me warmly by hugging me once I had opened the front door. This was surprising, because affection wasn't something that she commonly expressed. If anything, the blonde girl was the embodiment of disdain and arrogance, although that mitigated years after we became friends.

The Jewell family stood huddled in the hallway, uncertain as to how to react. It was several days since i last saw the blue-eyed boy saunter into their house, and dad had managed to convince me to visit them for once.

"I'm so sorry for what happened," Camelia whispered into my ear when she hugged me. Yet instead of being comforting, her words merely ignited an irrational hatred within me. If only they hadn't left, I thought with vengeance. Then she would understand.

The idea startled me. But it was true. How could she understand? Whenever i glanced outside the living room window at the Jewell household in its splendour under the evening sun, I watched it with the knowledge that even the interior was as resplendent as its exterior, that the stench of death doesn't trail after the family, day and night, without pausing for one second.

I mumbled in Camelia's ear as a sort of reply. We followed her into the dining room, where several plates were lain on the table. "Bright, help me get the salad dressing," ordered Camelia. Dad and I stood there, wary of touching anything in the room, as though everything we touched would become burdened with our misery as well.

"Hello."

Startled, i turned to find the blue-eyed boy leaning against the bannister. He looked at me sheepishly, like a toddler being caught awake after his bed time. Between the two of us, dad managed to plaster a smile on his face and greet the boy, but as usual, my mind threw accusations at the other survivors of the event.

Why you?

At night, I would stuff pillows under Rein's duvet, so that it appeared she was still present, and if i squinted, I could see the subtle movements along the duvet, as though Rein was still breathing softly and rolling around like the troubled sleeper she was. Yet by daytime, the room became as clear and crisp as a lake, and i could tell that the lump on the bed was just manufactured by piling old pillows and folders, and that no one was there. And that the real Rein couldn't possible be a lump covered by the duvet, because she was reduced to ashes.

And the accusations follow.

Why you? Why not Rein, or mum? Why did you live while the others died?

And slowly, the accusations would turn upon me.

As Altezza dished out the pasta, i scrutinised the movements of the blue-eyed boy who now sat across from me. Does he feel the same guilt as i do? Does he bear the mark of having lived through tragedy, besides the burn scars on his arms?

Suddenly, he looked up and stared straight at me. "You're called Fine, right?"

I nodded. "Hello, Fine."

At seeing her guests talk, Camelia immediately began to gush in order to maintain a decent conversation, "Oh yes, we were just telling Shade about you the other day. I hope you don't mind, but we told him about the incident with the cakes at Altezza's last birthday." Camelia laughed shrilly, while Shade merely smiled apologetically.

"So, Shade, perhaps you'd like to tell Fine and Truth more about yourself?" Aaron urged on.

Dad grinned, happy to be part of the conversation, and while they talked, i continued my study of the strange sat opposite to me, who apparently had already assimilated into the Jewell family. I racked my mind to conjure up the image of Shade's parents and that of his little sister. They were an attractive trio, with Milky's face being an exact replica of her mother's, both emanating warmth and amiability. I remembered that Milky, who i immediately befriended and had spent two days on a cake searching hunt with, had inherited her pink hair from her father and blue eyes from her mother.

Shade, on the other hand, clearly had his father's eyes and jaw. Mr. Deluna, who was absent for most of the time, had a steely gaze and determined mouth that was reflected in his son. But there was something distinctly foreign about Shade that separated him from the family whose home i had been invited to, a certain air of keenness and…and ruthlessness.

Ruthlessness! The word startled me, and brought me back to the chatter at the table. Though mostly subdued, Shade was animated while chatting away with dad, offering quiet laughs and occasional glances at me to acknowledge my nonexistent participation in their conversation. He wasn't ruthless. He's the perfect portrait of a charismatic acquaintance.

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at football," Shade told dad. "I've spent most of my time sleeping than running around. It's that sickness I had when I was younger that weakened me. It left me confined to my room most of the time. My father also sent doctors to keep an eye on me and make sure i didn't become overly energised."

"So that's why we didn't see you the whole time," Bright commented.

"Father prefers to isolate me. He rarely even visits me."

Several pairs of eyes were upon me, expecting me to chime in. "That…that must've been awful," I proffered lamely.

"I'll bet father didn't even mention me to you," Shade rued.

"No, he didn't." I suddenly realised how terrible Shade's predicament was. For the two days I knew Milky, she had told me the whole time she wished she had siblings to play with, and that being the only child was boring. To keep Shade's existence from his own little sister…My sympathies has now recognised the injustice Shade had met with, and were quickly extended towards him. "How could he even keep you away from Milky!"

Shade appeared alarmed, but then hastily fell into conversation. "I know. But he had good intentions." It turns out that Shade didn't know of Milky's existence either.

He spent the rest of the evening eating taciturnly, brows furrowed in concentration. When the others left for the living room, he and I remained, chewing on the cold, plastic-like pasta. "Just leave the dishes in the sink when you're done," Camelia advised us before joining the others.'

Once alone, I murmured across the table, "I'm sorry if I…"

"It's alright," he interrupted. "I'm okay."

The chandelier (a cheap plastic replica constantly the butt of the joke in the Jewell family) shone down on his forlorn face. Did he feel better after knowing he had a sister, even if said sister had perished in a fire, or worse? It occurred to me that Shade and I formed a dichotomy: on one end, he was completely unaware of his sister's death, and failed to mourn his loss; on the other end, there was me, feeling broken after being forcefully separated from my twin sister, whose bed I still stuff using pillows and folders.

"I miss her," involuntarily, I blurted out my thoughts.

Pondering over his last bite, Shade finally said, "I don't think I do. Miss my family, I mean. Don't get me wrong, I like them, but it's been so long since I've last seen them. I don't even know how my father looked before he died. It's hard being attached to people you don't know." He breathed out a sigh of relief. "It's good to finally let that all out. The Jewells have been so good to me, but they always assume I'm in a constant state of bleakness when I'm not."

In the living room, Altezza and Bright darted concerning glances at the two of us from time to time, and only stopped and cowered when they realised I had noticed them.

Suddenly, I felt an extreme hate for the siblings. I loathed how they were always pretending to understand when they couldn't even comprehend what Shade and I had gone through. In my mind, I envisioned them grinning behind our backs, glad that they weren't the ones who were left to suffer.

"They don't understand," I echoed Shade's words.

That night, I tossed and turned, plagued by my nightmares again. Unable to sleep, I lifted the curtains of my bedroom window and peeked at the house opposite. In the spare room on the left of the house, where Shade had told me he was temporarily sleeping in, a small glow emanated from the spaces between the walls and the curtain. So he couldn't sleep either.

I spent the rest of the night watching the glow opposite, until the strident sunlight cast it in its shadow.

Sleeplessness made me groggy. Half-asleep, I paced down the stairs into the vacant kitchen where dad was making toast. "Hmm, any plans for today?" he asked, as per a routine he had devised ever since I returned from the hospital.

Normally, I would mumble something about watching a football game or going to the park or something, as there was nothing better to do in the holidays, especially since Rein…well, there was nothing else to distract me. Yet after last night, I had an inspiration. "I'll go over to talk to Shade."

Surprised, dad tried to keep his voice calm. "Good. Make some friends, have some company." I could tell he was glad.

But my plans were cut short when a policeman arrived at the house asking to interview me about the fire.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"And what did you see during the fire?"

I was at the police station. Two officers sat opposite to me, one of them scribbling down notes and directing the whole process, while the other stared at me intently, as if trying to decipher whether everything I said was true or not.

They had gone through several routine questions: about my relationship with the occupants of the mansion and the other victims, about the reason for my visitation of the mansion, about what I had seen prior to the fire, and now with his hand trembling above the half-filled sheet, the policeman pounced upon me with the vital question:

"And what did you see during the fire?"

My mouth ran dry. The image of a molten body against the window came back to me. Struggling, I cast it out of my mind and tried to recall the exact order of events that had lead to me escaping the worst of the flames. I closed my eyes to shut myself off from the rest of the world, and ventured deeper into my memory.

 _An ajar door_ …yes, I had left the mansion. I was walking down the darkened corridors, clutching a lamp that I managed to detach from the bedroom wall. Rein was too tired to join me, so I prowled along alone. Yet I was too frightened. Always cautious of grotesque shadows cast on the walls, always afraid of sudden noises caused by shuffles or flutters generated by the sharp winter breeze, always needing her sister by her side, always the wimp…Rein would have been braver. Rein didn't see phantoms in shadows or monsters under the bed. Rein was stronger. Rein should've lived. Rein…

"Take your time," the policeman reassured me. I realised I had begun to cry.

Wiping away my tears, I drawled, "I was out to find something I lost in the garden. A football, something like that. But I couldn't make it, so I went back upstairs. And by then, the fire had caught up with me. It was orange everywhere." I gulped, my words screeching abruptly to a halt in my mind.

"Then the fire burnt me and I ran out of the mansion," I finished off. The policeman scribbled something down and proceeded to the next question. Yet I felt the stare of his companion bearing down upon me, as if he had seen what was going on in my head. And if he was suspicious, I couldn't blame him.

Because what I told the policeman was not the entire truth.

Because, I had seen amongst the flames, a hint of blue.

-.-.-.-.-.-.

I managed to avoid most activities required of a beleaguered family member after an arson. During the inquest, I loitered around the park, instead of accompanying dad, as payback for him not needing to be interviewed by the police, as he was not a witness to the fire. I knew the police would catch up with him sooner or later, though not as eyewitness, but as family member to a suspected arsonist. The way the policemen studied me at the interview, you would be certain they thought I had set the fire.

I did burn the school kitchen, when Rein and I had forgot how long the soup took to boil, but that was it, and no one was hurt by it.

My fires don't kill people.

The sentence taunted me for a while, but I decided adamantly against it. I didn't want anything related to fire as Rein's epitaph.

That's my excuse as to why I couldn't turn up at the inquest. To better plan Rein's and my mother's funeral.

Dad bore most of the brunt. He sent invitations and bought wreaths and coffins and coordinated everything. Two coffins now reposed side by side in our living room, like poor substitutes for the dead, or grand, hollow monuments. Dad and I spent most of the weekend stuffing the coffins full with mum and Rein's most cherished items, like mum's jewellery box and hair brush and the very first dress Rein had made, alongside piles of family photos and plush toy animals and badly-drawn pictures. Yet secretly, we both kept the nearest and dearest items for ourselves: the ticket to the amusement park where dad proposed to mum, the poorly-stitched doll Poomo that served as an imaginary friend for Rein and me. We couldn't let an empty coffin take those away from us.

"Hey." Shade sauntered into the park. The Jewells made him an exception as well.

"Hi." It had been a week since we last spoke together, and in daylight, his presence was awkward and unwanted.

"Sorry, did I interrupt anything? You looked deep in thought," he said.

"Nah, it's just…" I noticed the baseball cap and hoodie that he was sporting. "Nothing. Just thinking."

Humming, Shade sat down on the swings behind me. He swayed back and forth, and occasionally sideways, feet always touching the ground, bemused at the swing's presence in a playground. "Here, I'll push you," I proffered.

"Thanks," he laughed. "I never did learn how this works."

As he swung higher and higher up in the air, laughing lightheartedly as it did so, I asked, "Were you always sick?"

"Hm? No. It started around the time my mother died."

I was alarmed, though I still managed to give him a feeble push. "Your mother? You mean…" I recalled the soft features of Mrs. Deluna, and how I thought them incompatible with Shade.

"Father remarried after I started living in confinement. I saw my stepmother a few times, but I never bothered to learn her name. I suppose she's the one the Jewells are related to."

"But they still sent you to live here."

"My parents were secluded. And they didn't have any relatives. It was just the three of us."

Imagining Shade as a child, living in that gloomy mansion with only his parents as his companions, I commented, "That must've been lonely."

He shrugged. "I'm used to it anyway."

The swing's movements gradually subsided. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

"Me? Oh, um, I had a sister. A twin sister," I said, painfully aware that I needed to use the correct tense. "We go to this school nearby, that most of our friends go to, except for Bright and Altezza."

"It is nice there?"

I winced at the memory of the school's claustrophobic brick walls and drab hallways and monotonous lessons that I could never fully comprehend. "It's alright I guess. They're quite relaxed about rules."

"Sounds nice." The park was eerily silent. Most of the children were at school, so in the mornings the park is usually occupied by the elderly, practicing Tai Chi, or simply enjoying the fresh air, with the occasional housewife taking her dog on a walk. I spotted a few kids at the pond, but they were so far away that their laughter and cries were muffled, as though an invisible blanket had descended upon them.

"You like coming to the park?" I asked Shade.

"I like open spaces in general. They make me feel as though I'm free. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I grab a flashlight and go to the backyard."

"But you leave the light on in your room?" Before he cast a confused glance towards me, I blushed, and inwardly kicked myself for revealing the fact that I spy on him at nights. "Sorry. Sometimes I can't sleep either."

Shade didn't seem to mind. "I just don't like the dark." He sighed, and his breath turned into white mist that faded into the late winter air. "You must think I'm a wimp."

"No, no, not at all." You have no idea.

He shuffled his feet and grabbed hold of my wrist, smiling whimsically as he pulled me down to the swing beside him. "Shall I push you?"

It was the first time I had laughed out loud in a while. I had been playing at the park since I was a toddler, and learnt how to swing not long afterwards. With a strong push, I propelled myself upwards, higher than Shade had ever reached. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted how he marvelled at my prowess, while partly feeling disgruntled at how he was snubbed the ability to do so due to his ailment.

"So why are you here?" he asked.

"Running away from my problems," I answered, more embittered than usual.

"Avoiding the inquest?"

Not answering, I focused on swinging myself up higher and higher, aiming to shorten the gap between myself and the clear blue sky, because the further I was away from earth, the further I was from the inquest and the fire and the need to write an epitaph, and the closer I am to a place where none of that matters.

With a heavy heart, Shade added, "So am I."

Dad was fuming when he returned from the inquest. I watched as he stormed into the dining room, muttering under his breath. He threw his coat over the bannister and glared at me. "Where have you been?" I told him about meeting Shade in the park. "So you've done nothing? Jeez, Fine, all I ask is for you to do one simple thing, and you've spent the whole morning doing nothing. Great!" he fumed.

Entrapped under his rage, my arms flailed beside me helplessly, until he extracted from his coat pocket a folded magazine, and slammed it onto the desk. "Read for yourself."

Written across the cover of the magazine in bold, red, letters, were the words: Deluna Heir—Deprived or Depraved?

Beneath that was a glossy picture of Shade as a toddler, guileless and cheerful, whilst being held in the arms of a pallid, blue-haired woman, who I assume to be his mother.

Further down below was the subheading: How Moon Malia died under mysterious circumstances


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for everyone who's read this story. Please rate and review!

Chapter 4

The picture of the mahogany coffin in the magazine taunted me. It was merely a sketch of the real deal, and could possibly be miles different from the actual coffin used. Besides, the coffin drawn was simple and inelegant in design, a carbon copy of the pine coffins sold to those who could barely afford a funeral. Balancing the piece of paper on my palm, I weighed the significance of the coffin, and the more I thought about the body enclosed within it, the heavier it felt.

Next to the picture was a photo of Moon Malia as a young woman. She was beautiful, though not conventionally. Her face was pale, not because of make up, but due to some chronic illness that the magazine didn't bother to clarify. An invalid since birth, she was the only child of a wealthy merchant, and had married Mr. Deluna to secure her parents' social status, something her parents enjoyed for half a year before they died. Or so the magazine claims. I no longer found magazines reliable, since for the same article they claimed that it was the Jewells who perished in the fire, instead of Rein and my mum.

It was the night before the funeral. Poring over the article over and over again, I absorbed each and every word, whether lie or rumour or truth, like a plant imbibes water from the soil.

According to this article, Shade's life was troubled by misfortunes, which it strove to claim were actually omens that proved Shade was a malevolent, demonic child. Deaths in the family, mysterious disappearances around the Deluna mansion, markings around trees, all of which could be easily proved as natural occurrences: terminal illnesses, accidentally falling down nearby cliffs, childish foolery. Even Moon Malia's death, Dad dismissed as a singular but unfortunate case.

"Loads of cancer victims don't realise they're sick until they're at the very last stages of the illness," he had scoffed. "Moon Malia never looked too healthy anyway."

Shade was alone with his mother when she passed away. His father was out of town due to work, and the servants had gone home for the holidays.

"Damned tabloids, always exploiting drama even when there's nothing to write about," dad concluded.

But it wasn't the baby pictures of Shade or the descriptions of his family that attracted me. It was the coffin that did the job.

Under the solitary lamp, I observed the creases on the glossy paper, and marvelled at how the sketch would seem slightly different when seen at a different angle. Behind me lay the coffins of my mother and sister, wooden monuments that encompassed their entire lives. The more I stared at the sketch, the more similarities I found between Moon Malia's coffin and my mothers: the shape, the colour, the fact that one side was slightly longer than the other (though that might be because of the illustrator's skill), and finally, below the picture was the caption: Moon Malia received a close casket funeral.

There was a paragraph below the picture that discussed the implications, but it was the fact that it was close-casket that touched me. I felt an affinity for a woman I have never met. It was as though she had knowingly created the premise upon which the bond between me and her son would be tightened.

Both Shade and I buried our family members not as our loved ones, but as meaningless boxes, frivolous as monuments.

The funeral was a white day. That's how I would describe it. There was no sunshine, no clouds, no rain, just a blank white canvas that served as a sky, contrasting with our black funeral clothes. And when the orator spoke, and later when my father gave his eulogy, there was a greyish-white noise that buzzed around my ears, preventing me from hearing a single word.

It was over soon than I expected. Two coffins, stuffed with jewellery and photos and books, were lowered into a hole. And then dirt was flung over the coffins, over and over again until there was no more hole, just a dent that was patted down so it was level with the grass around it.

Dad and I stood before the coffin, thanking the guests and shaking their hands. with our backs to the newly dug tombs, I felt a slight chill down my back, as though the souls of Rein and my mother had risen up, having secured their final resting place, and were gazing lovingly at the two of us. And so I hugged and murmured to our guests perfunctorily, mimicking my father's actions, all the while feeling like a puppet supervised by the dead.

Several of our friends from school attended the funeral: Sophie, Chiffon, Lione, all morose, but all the while holding back their sorrow, as if their sadness was less legitimate than mine. People who I've never met, kids who merely passed by Rein and I in the corridor, never haven spoken to us, were present as well, and all of them put up mournful airs, as though they had been carefully instructed to do so by a professional actor.

Altezza, dashing up front, almost slammed into me in an attempt to hug me. Her tears dampened the tufts of hair at the back of my head, and her grip seemed to be an endeavour to suffocate me in the shortest amount of time. Yet, nearly as soon as she hugged me, she let go, without even muttering a word, and turned to shake my father's hand. But it was alright. I understood.

Bright followed his sister closely. He muttered a few condolences into my ear and hugged me as well. But his hug wasn't the rash, impulsive embrace by Altezza. Leaning against him, he almost felt like a sturdy rock, an anchor I can put my faith in, and suddenly I was the one who held on for dear life. At the same time, I felt Rein's disapproving glance land on me. Reluctantly, I pushed him away and straightened my shirt.

Shade stood near the end of the line. Wearing a pressed jacket, he gazed at me with the same intensity as the first time he saw me, and at that moment, I realised that Rein would have ardently acted as a matchmaker for the two of us.

"Hey," he whispered as he hugged me. And then, urged on by my dead sister, I yearned to disclose how I had read the defaming article in the magazine, and how I was touched by the description of his mother's coffin, and how it was proof that the two of us were more alike than we had imagined. However, he let go of me before I had time to say all of that.

I frowned at the last couple in the queue. "Who are those people?" I asked dad.

"Family members of the Deluna butler. They wanted to come for some reason, so they invited themselves."

The last two shuffled up towards us. They were an old woman and her daughter, both wearing gaunt expressions and shabby black dresses. They seemed to have materialised straight from another funeral, the creases in their faces already worn with dusts from newly dug graves. The daughter shook my father's hand.

"I'm sorry if we've bothered you," she murmured.

"No, no, you're welcome here," dad replied. From what I've heard, the butler had been one of the greatest victims in the fire: burnt entirely into crisp, unrecognisable if not for the watch he always wore.

The daughter sucked in a deep breath, wavering on whether to breach an open wound. "You see, we've just come here to…to check on Shade."

Shade?

"We saw him afar at his family's funeral," the daughter explained, "but we wanted to make sure if he was really the same person."

"But why?" I blurted out.

"Well, after his mother's death, he just sort of…vanished."

I knew that very well. He was trapped in his room, forbidden by his father to leave, or even visit his siblings, but hearing the words spoken by a stranger, they seemed daunting.

"Dad was really secretive about everything, and mum and I kept suspecting something was wrong," the daughter finished, and then cracked into a weak smile. "Well I guess it's nothing." The duo hugged dad and me, and followed the rest of the crowd to the opening nearby. Yet as they walked away, the old woman gave one last glance over her shoulder.

I kept thinking about her glance, even now, when everything has been blown over. She had gazed at me dubiously, concernedly, like a recalcitrant child placed under the care of a reckless parent. I should've asked her what she meant by that at that very instant, but I chose to stay put.

Behind us, the tombstones were put in place. Each displayed an epitaph chosen by dad and I respectively:

Mum's read: _There never was a woman more gentle_

Rein's read: _Her smile shone as bright as the sun_

It took me another month to smile again.

That afternoon, Bright and Altezza were waiting for me to come back from school. Without Rein, school had seemed lacklustre, and even the presence of my friends, Lione and Chiffon, weren't enough to fill in the gap that my sister left behind. None of them could ever live up to her, and whenever I hung out with them, I constantly noted the way they spoke, moved, thought, and envisioned how Rein would've spoken or moved or thought instead. She would've threw her head back and laughed, instead of smiling demurely like Chiffon. She would've clumsily shoved her books off the desk, instead of packing them neatly like Lione. She would've inclined towards clothes and TV stars and fancy costume jewellery, unlike whatever Sophie was inclined to do.

None of them are sufficient, I thought for the hundredth time as I ambled down the road back home, kicking the pebbles and rubbish as I walked along.

"Fine," Altezza shouted. They hovered outside the front gates of my home, exchanging meaningful looks. "Are you free this weekend?"

I had sports practice with Kaori, but I really didn't look forward to touching a football anymore, or any round objects akin to it.

 _"The ball's in the garden somewhere, Rein, and if you're not going to get it with me, then I'll go alone!" I huffed._

 _"Good luck," Rein mumbled as she rolled over on her bed._

Good luck. Those were Rein's words now. Anyone using it was sacrilegious.

"Yeah, why?" I shouted back at Altezza.

"We were wondering if you'd like to go to the new amusement park. It's just a few stops away, and they've got some new roller coasters," Bright said.

I was about to refuse, when Shade exited the Jewell house. "Are you going to?" I asked him.

"How could I refuse?" he smiled.

The amusement park was recently constructed, situated in a town that neither Rein nor I had ever visited, with rides that neither of us have tried together. I saw why Bright and Altezza wanted me to join them. They thought this could give me a respite from thinking about Rein again.

Shade looked at me pleadingly, as if conveying the good-will of the Jewell siblings to me via his gaze. Once again, I recalled Moon Malia's coffin, and felt her bringing us closer together.

"Sure," I replied, and the Jewell siblings were pleased. Yet I was fixated on Shade, who had now leapt over the gates to join us. I wondered if he realised that he was my motivation to join them, and answering my scrutiny, the rascally glint in his eyes seemed to affirm my thoughts.


	5. Chapter 5

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Chapter 5

Rein and I used to hate roller coasters.

Which was why that's the first ride I chose at the amusement park.

Topsy-Turvy was situated at the far end of the park. Since it was still early, the open areas around the ride was sparse, the only people there were the cotton candy vendor and the few visitors taking advantage of the early hours and short queues.

"Are you sure about this?" Shade asked, eyeing the ride dubiously. The ride, which was rumbling towards the peak of the tracks, ready to dip at breakneck speed, was filled with screaming passengers.

"C'mon, don't be a wuss," scoffed Altezza.

"Can't I just stand by for a while? Or couldn't we start elsewhere?" said Shade. His fears heightened at the sound of the passengers' screeches, which were amplified by the tunnel they passed through. It wasn't only him that had doubts; Bright was also glancing at me suspiciously, surprised by this out-of-character choice.

"Are you absolutely sure you want this?" he asked. The ride had come to an end, gradually slowing to a stop, its passengers all panting in delight at the thrill.

With a nod, I squared myself, and the others followed.

Topsy-Turvy's tracks went off at bizarre angles, flying upwards almost vertically, until at the very top, it curved abruptly and fell, its downwards path equally steep. At one point, it had several 180-degrees turns, one right after the other, spinning endlessly without respite, which reminded me of hammer throwing. Turning and turning and turning without giving you time to prepare yourself after a particularly terrifying drop, unforgiving, ceaseless, with no time to think.

No time to think about her.

I stood abreast with Shade as we waited for our turn. It had been somehow tacitly decided that the Jewells would sit together, leaving Shade and I in the car behind them. Occasionally, Bright would shoot suspicious glances at the two of us, as though fearing an unsightly outburst from me that Shade would be unable to control. In reply, I gave him a reassuring smile, and prompted him to stand in line behind Altezza.

"It's safe, right?" Shade muttered.

"Yeah. The others are still alive."

"That does't prove much."

Suddenly, I realised that he was shaking.

"It's okay, I'm scared too," I said. We were so close to each other, that I could see his eyelashes flutter, likes the tremor of leaves when children run past it, leaving a slight breeze that only those within its little sphere could feel. I noticed that he wasn't much taller than me, probably due to years of infirmity, and that sheltered from sunlight, his face was gaunt and impersonal. Following the silhouette of his nape, my eyes traced the outlines of his collar, his adams' apple, and the faint pulsing of his veins that was barely detectable.

"It's our turn."

Teaching him how to use the safety belts and lowering the protection bar was perfunctory. Watching him squirm was the entertaining part.

"It's alright," I said for the sixth time. Altezza turned to meet my gaze, hers excited, and I tried to keep up with appearances. The truth is, I was having second thoughts about the ride as well. The main reason I did this was to have a legitimate reason to scream my lungs out, but that now seemed like a feeble excuse, and the ride really wasn't worth it. I'd rather be regarded as a banshee that was let loose in the neighbour.

Shade's hand held mine. "You won't mind, right?" he grinned weakly. In response, I gripped his even tighter. For the both of us.

The cars crawled up the slope, waiting to tip forward at any second, and with our hands linked together, I could sense Shade's pule, beating as quickly as mine. The 180-degrees flips weren't the worst, since all they did was make your brains feel detached for the briefest instant. This upcoming fall, however, is unbearable.

Yet, as the whole car of passengers screamed together, besides the sensation of an endless drop and the hidden despair of landing, I managed to decipher Shade's scream amongst the others, sounding right into my ear. Unlike his voice, which was softer and huskier, his scream was guttural, wild, as it stemmed straight from the innate fear of death. Placed together with my high-pitched shriek, we created a cacophonous harmony, and that thought alone distracted me from the ride.

And then it was over.

And Shade vowed to never ride another roller coaster.

We bought cotton candy afterwards. Altezza and Shade bought blue ones, while Bright and I bought pink ones. "i don't understand why you like the pink ones," Altezza said playfully, and took a huge bite out of hers to complete her statement.

"It's just a colour. Do you have to make fun of me over that as well?" Bright bemoaned. As Shade and I trailed behind them, we observed their banter, with Altezza's quips and Bright's genial retorts passing between them, like a tennis match with old friends, both familiar with the other's technique.

"They're always like that, even back home," Shade said. "Sometimes I get tired of listening to them. It's like a little game of their own."

I smiled. A game of their own. "Don't you join in?"

"I don't usually like talking."

"We're talking."

Shade shrugged. "I guess."

I was reminded of our bond that derived from close-casket coffins, and silently commented on how we were two of a kind. Unconsciously, I was aware that we were still holding hands, but I took his silence as a sign he didn't mind.

Then I remembered why Bright would choose the pink one.

 _…Rein always picked blue cotton candy. She held it above her head, waving around her little blue cloud, and in response, Bright would choose pink, as though they were collecting cotton candies, and a variety of colours was preferable. Together, they held their cotton candies above their heads, two different objects of the same kind, somehow complementing each other. When I commented on how the colours match, Rein would blush and say…_

What did she say? My memory is too faulty. At once, I felt three pairs of eyes gazing at me concernedly at my forlorn expression. We had stopped in the middle of the road, and the passersby avoided us, like the curtain of the waterfall parts when it encounters a rock.

It was so unfair. Just when I thought I had managed to cast Rein from my mind, the rest of the world chips in to remind me of her. Everywhere I looked, there was Rein. Each colour, each gesture, every little detail contains a fragment of a memory, and I could never run away from them. The stakes were against me in the first place: when anything could make you dwell on the past, it is inevitable.

"Let's choose another ride. Shade? Your turn to pick." Altezza wanted to keep the atmosphere jovial.

"I'm a bit tired of roller coasters. How about you and Bright go on, and Fine and I have a walk around? We'll meet you at the cafe half an hour later."

Unwillingly, Bright was dragged away by Altezza, who trusted Shade to handle me. Once the siblings left, Shade ambled along the road to the wooden benches. The tug of his hand brought my attention to how we were still holding hands. "Sorry," I said, and released my grip, but he didn't do the same.

"How often do you think about it?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

Most of the benches were occupied by bored parents with their toddlers, or teenagers waiting for their friends while browsing through their phones. The only empty bench stood next to the rubbish bin.

"How often do you think about her?" he rephrased.

"Daily."

Still holding hands, we sat on the bench, after brushing off a few leaves and plastic tissue packets. Silence shrouded our bench, and all of a sudden we were separated from the surrounding hubbub. Observing the rest of the world from our little bubble, my sense blurred, and the throngs of visitors turned into smudges of red, black and blue, as though I watched them through a filthy glass.

Further down the road, a woman bent down to wipe the corner of her daughter's mouth. I turned away at the sight of it. Enough, I thought, if thinking about Rein was unbearable, thinking about mum was even worse.

"Even now?"

"Even now." However, that wasn't entirely true. The brush of his sleeve against my skin crept into my consciousness, but that was it.

"Has it gone better?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you thought about it…her, less?"

There was a pause. "It's difficult when everything reminds me of her. It's ridiculous, and really stupid, but that's that. Even the colour blue," I gestured towards his hair, his eyes, "even that brings back memories." It occurred to me then how Shade resembled Rein: the colour of his hair, the occasional sageness in his eyes, the way he stood without stooping, protecting me from unwanted interactions.

"Does that mean I should stay away from you?"

"No!" my reply came abruptly, even Shade was taken aback.

"Fine, I'm trying to find a way so you could get over what happened."

"It's getting better now. I promise. Now that the funeral's over, and the investigations about the fire are coming to an end…" at this point, Shade rolled his eyes.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Listen. It's great coming our here with you and Bright and Altezza, but you can't force me to forget about someone so soon. Give me some more time, okay?"

"But if it hasn't got better-"

I groaned at his protest. Why were they so intent on taking Rein away from me forever?

Sensing my discontent, Shade changed his tactic. "How about…what doesn't make you think of her?"

"Roller coasters."

We burst out laughing, and the bubble that protected us melted. revealing a clear, crisp world where people weren't colours.

"Okay. Let's try something. We've got twenty minutes till Bright and Altezza come back. In the following twenty minutes, we're not going to talk about Rein. Just twenty minutes. You could do that, right?"

I nodded.

"How about…what do you like doing in your free time?"

"Me?" I said. "Well…" memories of Rein and I chatting in our back garden, planning gatherings and day outs flooded back.

"Why don't you tell me something about yourself instead?" I changed the topic.

Shade raised his eyebrows, but complied. "Well, what do you want to know?"

"What do you do in your free time?"

"Uh, I read."

"What books do you read?"

"Tale of two cities, Count of Monte Cristo-"

"Seriously?" I cried. The most I've read was the fifth Harry Potter book, and I thought that was already impressive.

He leaned back against the bench and grinned. "I didn't have much else to do. I've heard that you play football."

"Local team. Striker," I proclaimed proudly.

"Have you thought of going professional?"

"Me? Nah, I haven't trained for a while. It's the ones who train almost every day who get recruited."

"So you've given up?"

"It's a good hobby."

"So what have you planned on doing once you get out of school?"

I froze again. The future…Rein and I, working part-time jobs as we studied, paying the rent for our first flat together, me being bridesmaid to Rein…

Shade intervened again. "I have no idea about what I'm going to do. I was wondering whether I should go back to school to catch up, or whether I should just take up a vocational course."

And on and on and on we talked. Every time I became distracted by Rein, Shade would interpolate at the right time and introduce another topic in our conversation, carefully steering us away from anything related to Rein. We were like two actors in an improv sketch, casually manipulating the pointless chitchat to create some meaning. After a while, I found myself beginning to enjoy this. I found myself enjoying something that was unrelated to Rein.

Eventually, Bright and Altezza found us, and as we walked towards the cafe, we had continued to hold hands. It never occurred to either of us to let go.


	6. Chapter 6

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Chapter 6

School is the worst.

Everywhere I looked, people cast sympathetic glances at me, even those I didn't know personally, as though all it took was a simple gesture to assuage me. Even Lione, the usually bubbly and energetic Lione, was especially cautious around me, crafting questions or conversation starters that specifically avoided topics like 'death', 'Rein' and the colour blue. Chiffon, on the other hand, tried to drown me in her numerous probabilities concerning buses and the weather, assuming that boredom was the best way to sweep away bad memories.

And every time I turned to my left, wanting to express my absolute contempt about how everyone else was acting, I met with an empty seat instead. I had forgotten that Rein wasn't there anymore.

Eventually, Ms Tamba Rin approached me after school. "Fine," she said tentatively. "I was wondering whether you could join me at the library. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Without having Rein to consult, I had no option but to oblige my teacher. At the library, was my worst nightmare.

"This is Mrs. Pole, Fine. She's an experienced counsellor, and I'm sure she could help you through this difficult time."

I scrutinised Mrs. Pole's dark grey turtleneck, her lumpy face and her searching grey eyes, and wanted to throw up.

So, when I set off for school this morning, I deliberately slowed to a stroll, where I placed one foot before the other as though I was just learning how to walk, and then gradually slowed to a stop. By the time I reached the park halfway to school, it was eight thirty already, and the school bell must've rung ages ago.

None of them would miss me, I thought, or I could just make up an excuse about having the flu. It was early spring, the prime time to become sick. Ms. Tamba Rin might suspect, but there's nothing she could do about it. I remembered the last time Rein and I skipped school to find the watch she lost. We had received no repercussions, faced no disciplinary action. The school hadn't bothered to check whether we had arrived or not, and there were much worse cases to care about anyway (i.e. Fango and his ever lacking presence at school).

Fango. He liked Rein. He told her once after school, and I had overheard. So did that rich guy who visited the school that one time. They all liked Rein.

Drifting towards the slides, I wondered if I had every envied Rein. She was amiable, popular, the school news anchor, and most of us liked her, if not loved her. No, envy never registered in me. I told myself I was happy for Rein, happy that my twin sister had the best of everything, while I didn't. Rein always got the best deal, the best slice of pie, the best guy as her boyfriend, and I was always there dragging behind her desperately. Even now, when Rein's dead, she's left me to deal with the damage while she's off to wherever they go after death, away from the depression and the sympathetic glances and the grief counsellors.

Feeling a surging hatred within me, I kicked the slide. "What are you doing here?" a voice rang out.

It was Shade. "I…I didn't realise…why are you up so early?" I asked in retaliation.

"I told you, I like open spaces." Sauntering out from behind the slide, he sat down cross-legged beneath the monkey bars. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

"I…there's a holiday…" It was no use. I always stutter when I lie. Plopping down beside him, I explained, "I didn't feel like going."

We sat there, enjoying the silence for a while. Faint sounds of classical music drifted towards us, and for a moment, while basking in the mellow sunlight, I felt better than ever.

"What do you plan on doing, then?"

I shrugged. "I dunno, hang out at the mall, waiting until it's the afternoon and dad's come back home."

"Doesn't sound like much of a plan."

"That's cause I didn't have a plan in the first place." I turned to him. "What about you? What're you going to do?"

"I've told you I like open spaces, right? Hence, I strive to be in such areas for as long as possible."

"Hence?"

"Why?" he frowned. "What's wrong with the word?"

I shrugged. "Nothing. It's just that people don't really use the word. Not while writing, I mean, I use the word loads when writing essays. It's just, when we talk, we don't really use the word 'hence'."

"The vernacular versus the written language."

"Yeah…kinda like that." Suddenly, I was struck by the image of Shade, lonely in the infirmary ward, yearning for someone to talk to him. "When you were sick, did, like, were the nurses the only ones who talked to you?"

He laughed. "No, not even the nurses. Just the butler."

"The butler?"

Not long after the funeral did a small concluding piece about the fire appear in the newspaper. By the time the police had finished investigations, public interest in the fire had ended, and the editors had decided that a small article tucked inside the newspaper was what it deserved. The article stated that the fire was arson, set by the butler, who was seen dragging two tubs of kerosene into the mansion that night. The butler had subsequently died in the fire, so no one knew why he did it.

All I could do was blame a nonexistent man for my sister and my mother's death. How convenient for everyone else.

Oblivious to my chagrin, Shade answered, "Yeah. He had been in the family for years before I was even born. He was the person father trusted to raise me while he was away, doing, doing whatever he was doing."

"Didn't he mind that you were sick? Your butler, I mean. Wasn't that why your sister didn't visit you?"

"I think father just wanted me isolated. Like the tabloids, he seemed to have blamed me for my mother's death."

His words cast a sombre mood upon the park. The classical music had stopped, leaving a void in its wake, andI felt a chill climb up my spine. "That was horrible." I trembled under the weight of the hatred I felt, for a man I hadn't even met. "How could he?"

"In retrospect, it wasn't too bad. I had my own space, my own free time. I used to look out of the window at the garden, and try to sketch what I saw, because it was just so beautiful."

"I didn't see you from the garden."

"I had my blinds shut during the day. Any way, I was talking about the back garden, with the marble fountain and the rhododendron bushes."

"Which floor was your room on?"

"Second, third, I guess? I've forgotten over the years."

Something in what he just said still bugged me. A hazy phrase floated in my head, but however I tried to grasp hold of it, decipher it, it remained as fuzzy as it had first appeared. Then, I had no choice but to let it go.

"So, do you just sit here all day?" I asked him.

"I occasionally wander around in the streets. I've found that I take a fancy to walking. I haven't been able to stretch my legs properly for years, and I'm trying to compensate for that." To demonstrate his point, he stood up and trotted over to the pond, beckoning me to follow.

A pram rested beside the pond. The hood was almost shut, but from behind the hood sounded the gurgling of a baby. A woman with long, brown hair knelt beside the pram and smiled genially at the giggling baby, and I had to turn away again.

"Rein and I used to feed the ducks at the pond," I uttered. That's right. Focus on Rein, pretend it's only Rein you've lost, because it's easier that way.

However, Shade disregarded my comment and stared at the bag next to my feet. "I didn't know you liked the colour blue as well."

Swiftly, I checked my bag, and found that once again I had mistaken Rein's bag for my own. "Shoot," I muttered under my breath.

Shade wandered over and peered at the bag. "Is it yours?"

"No, Rein's."

"Why keep it?"

Why indeed? If Rein's unending presence in my life was so painful, why don't I eliminate all possibilities of remembering her?

"It's…it's my sister's," I replied sheepishly.

"Throw it away."

"Huh?" I asked, my mouth agape.

"Throw it away," said Shade. it wasn't a request; it was a command. Seeing that I failed to duly react, he grabbed the bag and held it before my eyes. "Throw it away," he repeated.

At that instant, I felt like I was being torn in a myriad of different directions. On one hand, I wanted to snatch the bag from his hands and cradle it as though it was my only child. On the other hand, I wanted to throw my arms wide and prompt Shade to swing the bag into the pond. And a third option appealed to me as well: Shade and I tearing the bag open and spilling the contents onto the grassy fields.

In the end, I nodded meekly. Having received a response, Shade flung the bag over his head, and it splashed into the centre of the pond, startling the ducks gathered there. We watched as the blue bag buoyed on the pond's surface, then, dragged by the weight of the objects it held, sank gradually, until it was swallowed up entirely by water. Blue disappeared into blue.

Suddenly, I drew an interesting parallel: fire swallowed Rein like water swallowed her bag. Blue perished because of red, just as it perished because of blue, and none of that made any sense.

Before I knew what was happening, I had jumped into the pond and was wading towards the spot where Rein's bag sank.

"Fine! Come back!" shouted Shade. The woman with the pram was also yelling, and the ducks were scrambling from their place, their wings flapping beside me, their beaks pecking, and the whole scene was a cacophony. Yet underwater, everything was a silent, alluring blue, and the deeper I swam, the darker it was. The bag was nowhere to be seen, but I persisted in swimming towards the bottom anyway, because deep down, I knew that the darker it was, the happier I would be.

No red, no blue, just endless, endless black…

"Fine!" I spluttered and gasped. It was noon, and the sun was warming up my damp clothes.

"For goodness sake, Fine you frightened me." Shade was sitting from a distance, and his words were cold.

"Are you alright?" Also dripping with the dank pond water, the woman with a pram leaned over me, checking to see if I was truly conscious. Forced up against her, I noticed that her eyes were crimson as well.

"Yeah, I'm okay, sorry," I muttered. Instinctively, I turned away from the woman and stared at the grass stalks instead.

Shade and the woman were talking to each other, murmuring under their breaths. From the corner of my eye, I could tell that the woman was distressed, but Shade was nonchalant.

Finally, Shade thanked her, and the woman pushed her pram down the muddle path towards the park exit. Still lying on the grass, I heard my stomach grumble.

"What time is it?" I asked. It was too tired from my recent endeavour to stand up, so I soaked up as much sunlight as I could in order to empower myself.

"If you wanted the bag, you should've told me," commented Shade. "As for what time it is…it's almost noon. I'm off to grab something to eat. Care to join?" He hummed impatiently when I didn't answer.

Finally, I spoke up. "You don't like me, do you?" I asked.

"What?"

"I could tell. You don't like me a lot. You would've liked Rein if you met her. Everyone likes Rein. She's much stronger than me, even though she's my twin sister, and smarter. You'd like her as well."

Something inside me must've burst, because before Shade had time to formulate a reply, I broke into a barrage of words. "I saw her that night in the fire. She was standing there, amongst the flames, her long blue hair burnt into crisp, and I thought to myself how much I loved my twin sister."

"Fine, you're delirious. You haven't recovered yet."

"She was there. She stood there, immobile. That's right, immobile, I know that word, I'm not entirely stupid. And she must've been in shock or something, because even though the fire was heading her way, she didn't move. And I could've saved her. I could've grabbed her hand and we could've ran out of that mansion together. But I didn't. I was too scared. I could only save myself. So I let her die."

Neither of us spoke for a while. The park was vacant, save for the ducks, and suddenly I had a feeling that the whole world was vacant, save the two of us, and the thought of being left alone with Shade frightened me.

"God I hate her," I spat.

"One minute you hate her, one moment you love her," Shade smirked. "Make up your mind."

"I hate her because she's left me such a mess to deal with. I hate her because she's taken everything away and left me with nothing. And I hate you," I glared at Shade. "You too. Because you would've liked her for that."

HIs eyelashes fluttered in the bright sun light, and abruptly he transformed into Rein, her blue hair blowing in the breeze and her blue eyes blinking in the light, smiling condescendingly at me.

And all at once I was back to square one. I was back to the moment at the fire, but this time, I could see my sister's thin, pale silhouette against the fire, and the path I could've taken to save her. "I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you…" I muttered hysterically, and kept on doing so as Shade wrapped his arms around me.

"I hate you," I said, my last feeble attempt at pushing him away.

Shade hugged me tighter, so that my damp hair stuck to his cheek. With a sigh, he mumbled, "I know."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Dad sat down opposite to me, and immediately I could tell something was wrong.

The cloth he used to wipe the kitchen table was dumped into the sink, and the radio was buzzing with noise. The hosts' voices emanated from the small metal box, a high pitched chirp that was incongruent with the sombre silence in the dining room. Eventually, dad turned off the radio.

"Fine," he said. "Your teacher called."

His fingers drummed on the surface of the table, and I waited obediently for him to continue. The weekend sunlight shone through the glass doors, and a bird flew by languidly, swooping over the bushes in our garden, and the flowers that bloomed in the sweet spring air.

"What's her name again, Ms. Tambourine?"

"Ms. Tamba Rin."

"That's right. That's her." Dad filled the room with his nervous energy. "She's recommended a counsellor to help you, and I think you ought to meet her."

"I've met her, and I told Ms. Tamba Rin it wasn't much use."

"You've met her once. For less than ten minutes. I don't think you've been able to judge how useful a session would be."

"She makes me wanna puke," I told dad.

He sighed and pushed against the table. The legs of his chair screeched as they slid across the floorboards, and dad looked more dejected than ever. "Fine, I just want to find ways to help you."

"I'm fine. I don't need help."

I jumped when dad slammed his fists on the table. "No you're not!"

The bird in the garden flapped its wings, and as it set off, the leaves rustled, free from the bird's grasp. Pushing back his fringe, dad spoke with difficulty, "It's been over three months since…since Elsa and Rein, you know…"

"Died," I added helpfully.

Dad winced from the word. "Yes. And you haven't improved a bit since then. I mean, I'm not saying that I've been able to let go of what's happened," he chuckled drily, "But at least I've been recovering back to normal. I'm trying to put things behind. But from what I've seen, you're still immersed in it."

"What do you mean? I go to school, I visit the Jewells, I act normal, if that's what you want."

"Yes, I want things to go back to normal, but you aren't…aren't being normal. You look haunted, Fine, and that's unnerving."

"So what do you want me to do? Pretend nothing's happened?" my voice rose, furious that dad had tread into a private sanctuary of mine. "Pretend that we're still one happy family and forget Rein and forget mum and forget all of them? Is that what you want?"

"I've never said you should forget them, I just…I just want you to put them behind…"

His words seared into an old, open wound of mine, and the more he spoke, the more belligerent I became. "It's only been months and you want me to put them behind. I wonder how mum would think about that."

"Elsa would've wanted you to be happy—"

"There is no more happy, dad, there's no more normal, happy-go-lucky, going-to-the-mall-on-the-weekends because they're fucking dead!"

"Enough!" shouted dad. "You shut up, young lady, you shut up now."

Panting, he pointed at me, threatening me not to speak while taunting me all the same. Tremulous, he lowered his finger haltingly, aware of his outburst. It was bad enough that Rein and mum are gone. Now dad and I are on two sides of a fence.

"I just…I know what you're going through. I see you going around, shell-shocked, with all that pent up anger and sorrow, and I want to help you let go of all that. I know it's no easy business," hesitant, he spoke in fragments, testing which would be safe to say and which would trigger another round of arguments. "But it's been months, Fine. I want you to start healing."

Dad nudged the chair back into its position at the table. The scratch he made on the floor, however, was still visible, and it was as intrusive as a lightning in early summer. The mark of our first argument since the fire, it was.

"And another thing," dad said, placated by my silence. "Ms. Tamba Rin says you've been skipping class."

My heart skipped a beat, and I was suddenly pulled back to the mornings with Shade, hanging around the pond and lying down side by side in the grass, talking incessantly about whatever interested us. It didn't have to make sense or be coherent in any way, because his voice and his presence were all I need.

"You've missed school three out of five days, Fine. Where've you been?"

"Around the mall, to the park, places like that."

"How about that day when you were late coming back home? You told me you had extra lessons, but that's not true, right?"

I nodded. "I went up to the seaside that day."

Watching dad, I feared he was going to have another outburst. The seaside was an hour's train ride away, and another twenty minute bus ride further south. Shade and I had visited the beach on a sunny day, and with nothing better to do on an empty beach, we built a sandcastle together. I was late going back home simply because getting the sand out of my shoes and socks was tricky.

Dad buried his face in his hands. "Did you go there alone?"

"…Yeah."

"Don't you do that ever again, Fine. Promise me."

"I promise."

What I didn't tell dad was that the beach was merely one of the faraway places I visited with Shade. The city centre, the football field at the capital city, the fashion designer house…buildings, venues, places that Rein and I had planned to visit together but never got round to do so, became destinations where Shade and I went rambling together. We never frequented places that would haunt we with memories of Rein, though. I didn't want anything, or anyone, tainting my memories of us.

"No, tomorrow, I'm taking you to school personally."

"Dad!" I protested.

"I just want to make sure—"

"Are you saying you don't trust me?"

"Maybe. Also, I want to meet this counsellor of yours, this Mrs. Pole."

I grimaced at the thought of her. "I'm not sure you'd like the sight of her. She's drab as heck."

"She's a grief counsellor, not a model. You're being too harsh on her."

And with that, the tension subsided, and it blew away like the summer storm, leaving a last impression of lightning in its wake.

This time, Ms. Tamba Rin marched me towards the library herself. But before the great oak doors of the library, I got cold feet all of a sudden. "I'm feeling sick. I wanna puke," I said.

"I'm accompany you to the washroom then," said Ms. Tamba Rin firmly, so that I saw there was no escape.

After rinsing my mouth in the sink, the two of us sauntered into the library, which was vacant save for the woman in grey. Mrs. Pole smiled as she saw me. "Fine," she said, "nice to see you again."

My legs were feeling weak once more, and I wanted to dash out of the room, never to return again, but Ms. Tamba Rin grabbed my arm firmly so that I could barely budge. "Fine, perhaps you'd like to sit down besides Mrs. Pole."

I slumped into the chair, and immediately my legs went numb. I thought, if I willed myself, perhaps I could actually faint and skip this altogether.

Yet Mrs. Pole had a hypnotic way of staring at you, and before I knew it, we were the only ones left in the library. "Hello, Fine. I believe we got off to a bad start last time."

Staring at her dumbly, my mouth agape, I was covered in cold sweat. I'm not going to make it, I thought, I'm going to faint any second. For a moment, I managed to convince myself that I actually had the fever, and that staying in a stuffed room was terrible for my health.

"Mrs. Pole…"

"I see you're agitated, Fine. Just relax. Imagine you're back in your bedroom, and you're sleeping on a really soft mattress. You're snuggling under the blanket, all warm and cuddly, and the night is dark and still."

I was in my bedroom, sleeping, and Rein…Rein's bed was next to mine…I struggled against Mrs. Pole's words, and finally my irrational fears broke free from her incantation.

"No, no, not your bedroom then. How about a cinema?" Mrs. Pole fought on. "You're in a cinema, alone, and next to you is a slice of the most delicious cake in the world. Hmm?"

I suspected that either my teacher or dad had a word with Mrs. Pole before our session, and their betrayal alarmed me, and kept my consciousness pounding against the surface of Mrs. Pole's words.

Still, she perdured. "You're sitting in the cinema, sinking into your cushioned chair. And you're watching a football match. You're watching reruns of your game last year, where you won the tournament. You're watching yourself lift the trophy."

"Medal," I corrected, and closed my eyes.

"Yes, close your eyes. You feel safe in the cinema, and happy. You were the star player of your team, and your friends are congratulating you on your win."

I remembered Kaori and I in full embrace, tears streaming as the referee whistled, signifying the end of the match. We had made it. And soon, I willingly sank deeper into my memories.

"And in a moment, you're going to see on the screen the fire that happened a few months ago."

At hearing the word fire, I started, and my arms were flailing frantically at once. Yet Mrs. Pole forcefully held my wrists and steadied them on the table, like handcuffs at a police interrogation. "But the scene of the events isn't all that clear. It's black and white, and it's really fuzzy, so you can't see the details. And it's a silent movie. Have you watched a silent movie before, Fine? Perhaps Charlie Chaplin?"

Charlie Chaplin, the guy who keeps falling over and running into large animals, the comical figure with his stupid moustache…I placed the image of him within the fire, and the scene instantly became ludicrous.

"And now, when I say 'go', you'll see the scene play out, but silent, fuzzy, and black and white. Can you do that for me, Fine?"

Before she could even say the word 'Go', the events were playing once again inside my head. Charlie Chaplin, walking into the mansion on fire, except that Rein was on fire, except that she wasn't Rein, she was a black-and-white dummy with a blurry face, and that those weren't flames, they were substantial mists that moved around vehemently. And in the midst of it all was me, helpless, my mind befuddled, because who wouldn't, when Charlie Chaplin was walking into the wall of fire with his cane set aflame?

Instead of feeling traumatic or elated or even relaxed, I felt confused.

Unaware that i had disobeyed her instructions, Mrs. Pole continued, "Now, you've gone past the worst part of the night, and now your memories are fading, stop the movie on the very last frame."

But what was the last frame? The last thing I did at the fire was black out, so now I saw nothing, absolutely nothing.

"Are you at the last frame? Good! You're really brave, Fine. You've managed to live through such a terrible ordeal. Now focus on the last frame, okay? Now, we're going to play the movie again, except in rewind. That's right, everything you see would be backwards, starting from the last frame, and instead of black-and-white, everything would be in colour, and you'd be able to smell and feel everything that's happened. Could you do that for me, Fine?"

Once again, my mind zoomed straight to the task. All at once, the fire was extinguishing, Rein was walking backwards into the room, I was walking backwards towards the garden, the moon was descending and slowly it was sunset…

But I went much further back than necessary. I was reliving moments that weren't about the fire, weren't about Rein at all. Milky was laughing backwards, and Altezza was kicking the ball backwards, and mum spoke gibberish while she called to us from the balcony, and the withered flowers were blooming in the back garden…

I burst back into reality. No fire, no garden, no mansion, just the closed oak doors and the vacant library.

Mrs. Pole beamed at me. "You've done well, Fine, far better than I had expected. Well, it's getting late now. How about we meet again next week, huh? Perhaps you could make your decision later and tell Tamba. But you've done really well today." She patted the back of my hand to congratulate me.

However, I barely noticed how she was packing up her belongings and engaging in small talk with me. I was still wandering around amongst my memories, and one scene in particular had caught my attention.

Panting, I raced up the stairs into the spare room where the makeshift bed still stood limply. I threw myself upon it and swiped through the pictures in my phone. There were hundreds of them which I had just recovered, and within those hundreds of photos, I knew there was one that fits the bill.

There. I stared at the picture, hoping that I had made no mistake. Yet it was clear. Clear as day. My mind was still befuddled with the backwards and forwards and black-and-white. Yet as I had relived my memories, I saw the facade of the mansion that faced the back garden.

And now my suspicions were confirmed in the photo.

For all the curtains were pulled apart in the facade that faced the back garden, especially the ones on the second and third floors.

Thinking about it, Rein, mum and i had occupied all the rooms on the second floor at the back of the house, and Milky and her mother occupied the third floor.

So why did Shade claim his room faced the back garden?

My heart racing, I contemplated the possibilities present that could explain this, and clung onto the very worst: Shade was lying.

If so, why did he have to lie?


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I avoided Shade for the rest of the week. Each morning, I'd rush out of the house and straight to school, way before he would wake up, and loiter around the school gates for hours until they opened. For a few days, my tactic worked, yet he caught on on it, and started getting up early or wait for me by the school gates in order to see me.

At times like these, I'd make use of the crowds, trusting the myriad of people to keep me anonymous amongst them. Time and time again, I managed to sneak past him, leaving him by the gates, all forlorn and frowning.

And every time I caught sight of him, dejected and pouting, my heart would ache all of a sudden, and once again I would recall that wondrous bond which existed between us from the moment I saw his mother's close-casket coffin. I attempted to conjure up that golden moment when he and I were one, but the photo of the mansion's facade would always interfere, and the moment faltered even before it was formed.

I mistook that Friday as the same as the others. That morning, I awoke at five thirty, my bag packed and my uniform folded by my side. As usual, I peeked out of my curtain to the Jewell's house opposite, expecting Shade to have finally switched off the light in his room.

The pair of blue eyes glared up at me from the street. Screaming, I pulled the curtains together and hid under my blankets. He was there, I muttered under my breath. Shade was the phantom who followed doggedly after me, searing me with his intense gaze. And at that instant, I knew he would never let go of me, he would always be there, and there was no escape.

I must've dozed off afterwards, because dad came to wake me two hours later. "Fine? You're going to be late to school."

He walked into my room. "Fine?" Sitting down on my bed, dad patted my hair in an effort to comfort me. "What's happened?"

"Nothing. I'm sick," I feigned a cough.

"You don't want to go to school?"

I didn't reply. Eventually, he sighed and acceded to my request. "I'll call the school and tell them you're taking the day off. But just this one time, okay? I'm going to work, so you'll have to take care of yourself."

Once he left, I peeked out of the curtain again, but Shade wasn't there anymore. Probably he was still lurking elsewhere, awaiting the moment I would leave the house. "No luck this time," I whispered. I'm not leaving my house, and you can't hurt me out there.

The doorbell started ringing after lunch. Assuming it was a door-to-door salesman, I grabbed my haphazardly made sandwich and rehearsed my rejection in my mind over and over again. "No, we're not interested in whatever you're selling, good day," I muttered to myself.

But it wasn't a salesman. I saw that once I stood before the frosted glass embedded in the door. I would never mistake those deep blue eyes, which still bore into my mind years afterwards.

"Go away," I spoke through the door.

"Fine, I want to talk to you. Why have you been avoiding me?"

I slid the door chain across and pulled the living room curtains together, and for extra protection, I pushed a chair against the front door and sat on it, huddling against a cushion. "I said go away."

"What it is? What happened? Why aren't you meeting me at the park?"

The half-eaten sandwich felt soggy in my palm. There was a thin blanket draped across the armrest of the sofa, and I wrapped it around myself. Snuggling in the blanket, I closed my eyes and waited for Shade to leave.

"At least give me a chance to explain myself," he pleaded.

No, I thought. Go away, go away, everything's too confusing and you're just making it worse.

I let the sandwich drop out of my hands and land on the carpet with a thud. Feeling secure amongst the cushion and the blanket, with the smell of wheat and cold ham on my hands, I dozed off. Unconsciously, I hoped that by the time I woke up, Shade would be gone.

Yet he wasn't. The afternoon spring air was damp, and it weighed upon our shoulders, like an invisible pile of clothes. As I sat up groggily, I spied through the frosted glass that Shade was still sitting on the lawn outside, picking at the dandelions that splintered and shattered in his grasp. He leaned back, and rested his head on the bushes lining the edges of our lawn. Still wary of him, I noted how his blue hair drooped with moisture and how its colour clashed with the surrounding verdure.

"Awake?" he grinned wryly when he saw me.

"Go away."

"I've been terribly lonely without you this week."

I buried my face in the cushion and listened to the muted sounds of his footsteps as he approached the terrace. Knock knock knock, he went, with only the door standing between us. Knock knock knock.

"You've lied to me," I mumbled.

"What?"

"You've lied to me."

"Open the door, I can't hear you properly."

By shifting my chair, I managed to face the gap between the door and its frame. "You told me your room faced the back garden."

"Maybe. My blind was down most of the time."

"You didn't. I've checked. You've lied."

A laugh sounded from behind the door. "You've ignored me the whole week because of that?"

No, I protested, it wasn't just that. My mind was muddled ever since I had the session with Mrs. Pole. One moment it was Rein I saw in the fire, then dad, then Charlie Chaplin, and once it even became Shade, a Cheshire Cat's grin embedded on his darkened face. And then there was the repulsiveness, the sudden chill I would feel whenever I thought about Shade, and the hunch I had the first night I spoke to him, that behind his mask of amiability was ruthlessness beyond imagination. Yet between everything I felt, only the facade of the mansion was tangible evidence, to prove that something was indeed wrong, and I had all the right to remain afraid.

Shade said, "Just because of that."

"You haven't told me the entire truth."

"Why does it matter, where my room was. I could've lived in the kitchen and that wouldn't make any difference."

Suddenly, the incongruent images faded under his words, and my only tangible evidence vanished with them. Of course it doesn't matter, I thought, it doesn't change anything.

"You weren't telling me the truth. I expected that from you."

Shade replied solemnly, "I didn't want to tell you the truth because I don't want to face it either."

I sat up at his words, my heart beating rapidly. Here was my answer, I thought, here were the words that could erase every doubt I had with him.

"You're right, I didn't tell you everything. When I was younger, I did stay on the second floor room that faced the garden. But then…" here his voice became hoarse, and reluctance grabbed him by the throat. "But then, that happened."

The clock in the living room went tick-tock. It was four o clock, and the spring air suppressed us, so that even the blades of grass bent under pressure. The thick soup afternoon was still and silent, and once again I felt as though the two of us were in a bubble, separated from the rest of the world.

"Father had stayed overnight elsewhere for work. He left only mother and I at home, and I knew immediately something was wrong, because mother wasn't herself. She was an expert marksman, you know, and she used to give me shooting lessons even though I was just a kid. That night, she told me to shoot at the plastic bottles she set up in the yard, and then she told me I did a good job.

And then, and then…" his voice trembled, and I had the sudden urge to reach over to his hand and grasp it as tightly as he held mine at the amusement park.

His voice was no more than a whisper, and I had to press my ear against the gap to hear him. "She told me to pick the bottles up, and leave the gun behind. I did as I was told, and when I came back, well. She was dead."

I could almost hear him crumble beneath the weight of his words. In the house, I could almost kid myself that what I was hearing was just a fable, a nightmarish fiction spun to scare me, but out in the yard there was no retreat. It was as real as the dandelions that lay crushed in his hand.

"Shot herself in the head. I sat with her until the servants came back in the morning. And from then on, dad locked me in the attic. He trusted no one but the butler to take care of me, believing that I was responsible. You have no idea how horrible it was being alone."

It now made sense. How he loved open spaces, how he hated the dark, why he kept holding my hand at the amusement park…

"And the fire?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"But you survived it."

Shade chuckled dryly. "Yes, I survived it."

"How?"

"I don't know. Fell asleep in the attic, woke up amongst the rubble. I have no idea."

Feeling a bit stuffy, I shoved the blanket and cushion off the chair. Shade was still sitting on the terrace, but he wasn't facing me, so all I could discern was his blue hair that still drooped in the humidity. "Stay with me," he said. It wasn't a demand, it was a plea for help. "I feel so lonely when you and Bright and Altezza are all at school and I'm not."

I stepped outside to join him. Immediately a burst of wet, spring air hit me in the face, and the smell of dirt and watered grass was pungent, an unwelcome visitor into the little bubble of ours. I sat down cross-legged beside him.

"Why did you suddenly think about that, though? What reminded you of it?" he asked.

"My teacher forced me to meet this grief counsellor, thought it might help."

"Did it?"

"She made me relive the whole thing, except it was messed up, so that it's not as harrowing. But all she managed to do was muddle up all my memories. Sometimes I remember incredulous things, and even though it's impossible it seems so real."

Shade pulled at the grass and dumped the blades and the dirt over his shoulders. Some of the damp soil stuck to his shirt, so I brushed them off. At my touch, he shuddered as though traumatised after years of torture. "Fine, don't go to another counselling session."

"Huh?"

"Some things…some things are best left forgotten."

I nodded at the wisdom of his words, and his solemnity seemed to have seeped into the yard, with a sharp, grey tint appearing around the edges of the grass and the bushes. Shade said, "Listen, Fine. Put all that behind. It's happened, and there's no use thinking about them. That's what I did: block out the past, focus on the present. It's worked for me"

"I can't even think about them properly now." But that wasn't true. My memories were gradually being clarified: all the scenes I had conjured during my meeting with Mrs. Pole were becoming focused, as though I saw them through an adjusted camera lens, and they didn't make me freeze and shudder like they used to.

"Then don't think about them." Shade spoke with alacrity, and grasped my shoulders. "They've gone, vanished. Rein's gone as well. She isn't real anymore." Then, he took a deep breath. "But I am."

"I know."

"I'm real. I'm here. And I'll always be here."

"Hmm."

"Stop thinking about Rein, Fine. Think about me." He stared at me with those blue eyes of his, yet despite his commands, his eyes slowly morphed into Rein's, his indigo irises turning into her cobalt ones.

"I am."

And then, he leaned in and kissed me.

And at that instant, I knew he was right. He was here for me. Delving into his past revealed more similarities between us: we had mourned while secluded from the world, we were both lonely and embittered, and we knew that tragedy would always dog us no matter how hard we tried to avoid it.

His grip on my shoulders tightened, like a hawk tightening its talons around his prey. Shade and I were one at last. We had left all our petty worries and doubts behind, and I gladly acceded, kissing him back just as ardently. Our glorious bond had returned, and the world had restored its order.

When he pulled apart, his eyes were distinctly his, and strangely I felt lost. Across the street, another pair of eyes glared at the two of us.

Bright's expression was inscrutable. His red eyes flitted between Shade and I, a silent fury masked by his apparent placidity. "We were wondering where you were," he said.

"Great, now you've found me."

"Coming home soon?"

"I'm going to hang around the park for a while," Shade replied nonchalantly.

"Alone?"

Shade glanced down at me and bit his lips. "Yeah."

He sauntered off, shoulders slouching, arms tucked inside his pockets. With barely enough time to recover from his kiss, I now had to face Bright, who was fiddling with the lock in front of my yard, alone.

Struggling for a while, he gave up, his anger now apparent. "You didn't tell me about the two of you."

"I didn't know yet."

"What did you talk about?"

I was torn between telling Bright it was none of his business and pouring out the truth. In the end, I compromised. "We talked about my counselling sessions."

"And? What did he say?"

"He told me to stop having them."

"And you're just going to listen to him?"

"He does have a good point."

"Jeez, now he's telling you what to do. Are you going to keep on skipping school and hanging out with him at the park? Just like he wants you to do?"

"Why do you care?"

With his arms propped against the fence, he lowered his eyes and let the evening sun illuminate his golden hair, giving it a reddish hue. "I feel like I'm responsible for looking after you, especially now, when, when you're alone."

"I could manage."

"You think I don't know how you're wasting you're time, hanging around Shade and all that."

"That's my own business."

"But you're letting him do that to you. You're letting him drag you around places—"

"In fact, I'm dragging him around, not vice versa."

"And he's letting you."

"What's your point."

"You're using your grief as an excuse to indulge yourself, and he's not stopping you. And he should know better."

I stood up, fuming, my hands balled into fists. "You don't know him."

"Maybe I don't. But neither do you."

The gate slid open as the lock popped. Bright sidled into the yard and stood before me, and I could see how his hair wasn't pure gold, but in fact interspersed with strands of brown and dark blonde hair. "All I'm saying is, stop letting him indulge you. If you go on like this, you'll regret it sooner or later."

His eyes softened, and I froze as I knew what it meant: that he was gazing down at me not as a friend, but as a lover.

It was ludicrous. Not four months after Rein's death and he had already managed to move on. No, it was unthinkable. My sister deserves better.

As I fumbled around for a suitable reply, he sighed tenderly, and then the fluttering in my stomach died down. I understood.

He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Rein, and through me, he caught glimpses of her, in my nose, in my chin. I was only Rein's inept substitute that he could manipulate from time to time to fill in the gap that she had left. He was furious when he saw Shade kiss me, because in his mind, it was Rein that Shade was kissing, and it was Rein he had to protect from all harm.

"Go away," I repeated once more.

"Fine—"

"If you're not leaving, then I am." I stormed back into the house and slammed the door behind me. Within the hollow living room, dust had settled upon the furniture, and filtering from the bedroom above was a light, flowery scent. I had spilt Rein's favourite perfume bottle earlier this morning, and now its scent filled the house.

Even after death, Rein's presence still haunted me.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! By the way, I won't be updating next week, but warning, everything goes downhill from now.

Next chapter: the butler's wife makes an appearance and tells Fine about a strange disappearance of a man who lived near the mansion :)


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

My nightmares were becoming stranger and stranger. Instead of dreaming about molten figures by the window, my mind to revert back to the moment where I saw Rein standing amongst the flames, her blue hair taut and dark against the dazzling fire. During the day, whenever I dared to recall that moment, a shiver would be sent down my spine, and an icy fist of guilt would punch me in my gut. Yet still, I was able to conjure a lucid image.

In my dreams, however, the image returned to the black-and-white quality during my session with Ms. Pole, and it always failed to make any sense. Most of the time, I saw Rein, with her back against me, striking a match even as the fire reached her. Sometimes, there was a charred figure of a grown man subdued at her feet, an when she turned to face me, a twisted sneer plastered her face, causing me to wake up screaming in fear.

And sometimes, just once in a while, it wouldn't be Rein who turned to look back at me, but Shade, his spiky hair illuminated against the fire, a Cheshire cat grin smeared across his face.

It was pouring on Saturday. As I was idly chewing my mouthful of spaghetti, the phone rang. "I'll get it," I shouted to dad, who was staring the the TV screen. Through the living room window, I could see that the Jewell's house was also grim and forbidding in the rain, and a soft glow emanated from Shade's room.

"Hello?"

"Is this Fine Soleil?" an excited voice demanded.

"Yes."

There was a sharp intake of breath. "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you in anyway, but something's happened and I thought you might want to know."

It was the butler's daughter. The deceased butler, who had set the fire and had perished as a result. I winced at her introduction, but she continued.

"They've found a body near the creek, of a man missing since the day of the fire. We didn't think much about his disappearance at first, since he's always so isolated from the rest of us and goes away every so often, but then he didn't turn up for a while, which is when we began to look for him…"

Another dead body. This time, drowned, apparently, and once again, my mind submerged into a bubble, where her voice was muffled and her words didn't matter, and I was wallowing in the misery that never seemed to end.

"But here's the thing: you see, they think that he had died sometime around the fire, probably after it had happened, and he wasn't drowned, he was _killed deliberately_."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Well, there's some sort of speculation going on in town, and—"

"Why are you telling me this?" Can't you just leave me alone? Shade's voice reverberated in the bubble where I was trapped: don't think about them, don't think about them, they're gone, vanished.

"They think, well, we think, it might have something to do with the fire."

Stop, stop! shouted Shade's voice, echoing in my mind. I don't want to hear about this, I don't want to think about the fire, it's gone, it's done, it's over. Don't remind me of it. Stop, stop, stop!

"It's too much of a coincidence. The man, the dead man, Mr. Thompson, killed around the time of the fire, having lived near the mansion. And," the voice of the butler's daughter wavered through the phone. "I know you won't believe in this, but my father, I knew my father, and I know what the police think, but he won't do something like this. He wouldn't kill."

I thought of the butler's body, burnt to a crisp, and then the dead man by the creek, eyes wide opened, mouth gaping, as thought he had bore witness to a great injustice. The man dead after the fire, disappearing after the fire, after they had all burnt to a crisp…the bubble that surrounded me burst. Something was wrong.

The butler's daughter's voice was lowered into a confidential hum. "That's what's been buzzing around in the village. That someone else, some accomplice, is still out there…"

Some accomplice was still out there. I could picture it perfectly: the dead man, venturing towards the mansion near his house one day, found out who had set the fire, and was killed.

"Don't you understand?" her voice was hushed. "If that someone's still out there, if he's learnt about you…"

"Have you told Shade about this?" I asked.

Startled, she stammered, "Well, I haven't got round to him yet…"

"Why haven't you? His family was killed in the fire, right? The fire was targeting his family, right? If anyone's in danger, it should be him, not me."

As she sought for an appropriate answer, I had already dismissed any excuse of hers that might come through the phone. It was just another case of the culprit's family trying to deny that their loved ones was involved in any wrongdoings, it was just another case of diverting my attention to lessen their guilt, and she had called because she thought I was more gullible than Shade, more ready to accept repentance, dumber and hence more easily manipulated.

Shade's voice was ringing about my ears again. "Don't think about them. Don't think about them…"

Abruptly, the voice on the phone replied, "Do you trust him?"

I wanted to laugh at her question. Of course I trusted Shade. Shade…was all I trusted.

"Why not?"

"…My mother, well, she's naturally suspicious and all that, but she, well…" she struggled for words. "My mother wanted me to warn you…warn you about him."

And with that, she hung up.

The butler's wife wanted to warn me. Once again, I recalled the old woman glancing backward as she and her daughter left the funeral.

i thought about her eyes. Her shrewd, suspicious glance, her dark, beetle-like eyes, had it been an omen? Her eyes, alert and pitiful, screaming that danger was approaching me, that danger had approached me, and was encircling me like a predator surveys its prey before it pounces.

When dad reached me half an hour later, I was shaking.

Shade was waiting for me at the park next Tuesday. Unheeding dad's demands, I veered off the path towards school, and had packed spare clothes instead of textbooks in my schoolbag. "Hey," he waved.

I paused halfway towards him. In my scruffy patent leather shoes and my school uniform, I had felt, for the first time in my life, quite vulnerable in front of him. It didn't help that his grey hoodie reminded me of wolf hide. "Hey," I mumbled weakly.

"Ready to go to the cinema?" he asked. I searched his face for any signs that, one trapped in the dark enclosure of the cinema, he would devour me in one bite.

"I was thinking…" I gasped for air. "Perhaps we'd go to the old mall instead."

With his eyebrow raised, Shade nodded, yet, I noticed, peered at me as though he received an anomalous result from his experiment.

"It's been a while since I went there," I explained. "And Rein and I—"

"I thought we had a rule," he chastised. "To not talk about her."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

Changing into my old pink dress made me feel flimsier than ever, despite his compliments. I tried pulling down the hem of my dress, but to no avail. "There's no need to do that, it looks great on you as it is," he laughed. I tried to convey how insecure I was feeling, for no good reason, in a dress I had worn for years, but gave up.

"So, where do you want to go?" he asked.

"The restaurant over there." It was a shabby family restaurant that was almost vacant during the day, save for an old couple who were brooding over a cup of coffee.

"Don't you think it's a bit drab for a date?"

I shrugged. "It's not bad once you get inside. The food's nice."

The food was terrible. Either the service had deteriorated since we stopped visiting the restaurant, or my memory had served me wrong, in any case, I put down my fork halfway through eating the stone cold veal, and Shade did the same.

"Even the glutton couldn't tolerate this," he joked.

To spite him, I struggled with the rest of my meal, chewing the particularly tough sinews, and swallowing the cold bits of vegetables that were covered in unsavoury sauce. By the time I finished everything, I was miserable.

"There, there," he leaned over to wipe the corner of my mouth, as he realised that tears were brimming in my eyes. He vacillated between wanting to wipe the sauce off my face and wanting to wipe away the tears, then compromised by dabbing at both places with two different corners of the napkin, so that my eyes stung and my mouth felt sticky.

"Why do you love me?" I blurted out. The old couple had paid their bill and left, so no one was watching the spectacle between us unfold.

"Why ask?"

"I want to know. Why do you love me?"

He twirled his fork as he ruminated. "I guess…it was when I met you at dinner the first time we met. I mean, they told me of another survivor, but I never expected, well, I never expected you to be so understanding of me. And when Bright and Altezza talked about how you used to be so happy and optimistic, I just had the urge, to, to make you smile again." He heaved in relief. "Does that make sense to you?"

No, not really. Yet another question had festered in my mind for quite a while, and I knew I had to spit it out at once.

"Would you have loved me if…if it weren't for the fire?"

"If it weren't for the fire…at lot of things would be different, wouldn't it?"

"So no."

"I never said no, I just said that—"

"Things would be different." Yes, it would be much different. The handsome, likeable Shade, if he hadn't been imprisoned in that house of his, wouldn't have to be stuck with her, a victim of tragedy still bitter and miserable months after and months onwards.

"Things would be different doesn't mean I wouldn't love you." He sighed, "What's wrong with you today?"

Not wanting to answer, I turned away, and gazed straight at the indoor arcade from across the restaurant. As usual, it was bursting with fluorescent colours and stunning sounds, and several patrons were huddled before the machine. Without thinking, and desperate to change the subject, I said, "Rein and I used to—"

"For Christ's sake stop talking about Rein!"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because I'm trying to help you put this all behind! Geez, Fine."

"Well for your information, that hasn't worked so far." I was still having nightmares, I was still having visions, I was still expecting Rein to turn up when I entered the room.

"Maybe you're just not trying hard enough, okay?" Shade shouted back.

This is it. This is what I've been wanting to say the whole time, yet wasn't bold enough to tell him. This is the moment where I want to hurt him. "By the way," I spoke as casually as possible. "They've found a dead man near the mansion and they think you've killed him."

Once said out loud, I immediately regretted doing so. Shade's indolent eyes widened in fear, and he gripped the sides of the table in fervour, raising himself off his seat as though he was about to dart. "What did they say?" he asked.

"Nothing…they were only suspecting…" I had struck a cord within him far more effectively than I had imagined. When I refused to answer, he grasped my shoulder blades and started shaking me.

"Who was the guy? Where did they find him? Who's suspecting me? Why, when did you know about this?" Question upon question upon question did he throw at me, and dazed, I had lost track of them and didn't know what to answer.

"Shade," I whimpered, "you're hurting me."

Realising his mistake, Shade's grasp slackened, and he began caressing me absentmindedly. "I'm sorry, but you caught me by surprise," he spoke in that mellow, soothing voice. "Suspected of murder…how could they…" seeing the terror still existent in my eyes, he leaned in to kiss me, and murmured words of apology into my ear.

"This is a bad idea. This date, the mall, the restaurant…it's made you break down again," he sighed.

"If the butler's daughter didn't call, I wouldn't have brought it up again." I squirmed in my seat, but Shade waved my tacit apology to a side.

"Never mind her. And when I thought that was all over…"he leaned back on his chair, staring at the frame on the wall above me, and at the same time not looking at anything at all.

Yes. I had thought that, with the fire put behind us, we could start anew. But apparently both of us had thought wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

At first I tried to act like everything was normal. Why wouldn't they be so? Nothing much had changed. Rein was still dead, I was still skipping classes, and Bright still gazed at our house with the melancholic eyes of a tragic lover.

But Shade had changed. He had changed immensely since I revealed what the butler's wife had suspected.

"Hey, Fine," he would smile at me from his yard, his voice sugary and comforting, with a steely undercurrent where he second-guessed my every move.

"Hello," I would reply. Yet as I headed towards school, I could sense him following me, believing that I would settle down in the park with him, and that he would be able to surveil my every move. Instead of that, I deliberately turned at every other corner, trotting through bushes and down shortcuts, until I could no longer hear his hesitant footsteps chasing after me. When I felt safe and certain, I would then turn up at the bus stop and hop on whichever ride came next, in hopes that he wouldn't be able to catch up.

School was tougher now that I spend most of my time in the middle of nowhere, avoiding the presence of anyone I knew. Chiffon would keep notes in her neat cursive, and they piled up until I lost count of them and had to ask Lione for help with my homework.

Surprisingly, now with Shade lurking at the school gates occasionally, the library became my refuge. Ms. Tamba Rin had given up on therapy sessions by Mrs. Pole, so that whenever I ducked between the bookshelves, I did so with the relief that I wouldn't bump into the therapist and be dragged into another round where she muddied up my thoughts again.

Several times, I had wanted to turn round and invite Shade to walk me to school. Yet instinct warned me against it, foreboding some unseen menace that would happen if I did so. I didn't know why, but I kept avoiding him fora while.

Yet the day had come when I knew I couldn't just go on dodging his presence. It was Shade's eighteenth birthday.

Bright's parents had brought him to the city centre to collect his inheritance that morning. The mansion hadn't been insured, I had heard, but even when all the necessary procedures and payments were dealt with, he was left with an allowance that sufficed to help him start anew.

While Shade and Bright's parents were away, Altezza and I stayed behind to decorate her living room. As this was Shade's first proper birthday party in, perhaps a decade, Camelia had insisted that the celebration be as lavish as possible, while Shade had insisted on keeping things in a low profile. Eventually, somehow, they had settled for a home-made cake and a ton of store bought decorations that the family car's trunk could barely contain.

As we replaced the table cloth with a pristine, velvety sheet, Altezza groaned, "Why on earth are we putting in so much effort?"

"It's been a while since something uplifting has happened. Let's roll with it."

"Mum's only doing this because she thinks she might get a chunk of his inheritance." She then eyed me mockingly. "Well, you're the lucky girl, aren't you?"

"Am I?" I tried to sound as aloof as possible.

"And there I thought—" Altezza was on the verge of making some snide remark, when Bright entered the living room. "Never mind."

"Haven't hung the banner yet?" he asked.

"You do it, you're tall enough," Altezza stipulated. "I have no idea why you enjoy doing this."

"But it makes the house look better, don't you think?" said Bright as he untangled the multiple brightly-coloured banners with the words "Congratulations, you're 18!" written in different shapes and sizes.

"The way mum does it, I say it's an explosion of gaudy colours," shivered Altezza. "God, if I were Shade, I wouldn't be able to stand this nonsense."

"Just bear with it."

I noticed the acidic tone in Altezza's voice. "Aren't you happy for Shade?"

"Happy?" she scoffed. "Always playing the victim card, that's what he does, moaning on about how he was imprisoned in the basement and how the servants were mean to him. I don't know how you managed to put up with him, Bright."

"It's just a matter of time before he moves away, Altezza."

"But still, it gets so annoying after a while, especially when he does that to win favours from mum and dad. And they actually fall for that act. It's so lame." She rolled her eyes.

I stopped picking at the red paper chains and looked up. "He said what?"

Altezza ignored me and ranted beneath her breath. "I don't see what's so terrible about escaping a fire unscathed and basically being a millionaire."

"He lost his family," chided Bright.

"Judging from the way he talks about them, I doubt he cares," snorted Altezza. "In fact, I'll bet he set the house on fire on purpose just to—"

"Altezza!" he bellowed. The paper chains had withered from my hands into a limp heap on the freshly cleaned carpet.

"I'm sorry," I gasped. The siblings hurried about with their chores, with Bright comforting me under his breath and Altezza turned to a side, embarrassed. As though paralysed, I remained on the spot for quite a while before looking up defiantly at her, my rebuke right at hand.

"You're wrong, Altezza," I said. "He's not like that. The Shade that I know would never, ever harm someone, even for his own benefit. He was lonely and friendless, and all he wants is company from people who genuine loves him. And I'm sick of you trying to put him down like that."

Cold, cold eyes of emerald. "You've never seen how he acts when he think he's alone, have you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the way he moves, the way he mutters to himself, the way his whole expression changes once he thinks the door's closed."

"That's enough, Altezza, I don't want you to suggest anything that you only suspect," Bright interrupted.

"You're just trying to plant doubt inside my head because you're jealous of our relationship," i wavered.

She rolled her eyes. "Jealous? Please. I'm just looking out for you, as a friend. You trust him because you think he loves you—"

"He does!" I cried. "He loves me. We love each other!"

"Maybe he does. But even so, you're believing in every word he says, and that's creepy."

"Bright?" weakly, I sought help and reassurance from the older Jewell sibling, confirmation that what Altezza was saying was just pure fantasy, resulting from reading too many gossip columns and watching soap operas. Yet even he buried himself in his numerous banners. Remembering how he had advised me when we were left alone in my front yard, I slumped.

"You're on her side," I said. And when he didn't reply, I murmured, "And I thought you were my friends."

"We are your friends," he explained. "That's why we're telling you all this."

"You don't even know him."

Altezza, solemn and somber, asked, "Do you?"

Yes I do. I know Shade. I know that his mother was buried in a close-casketed funeral, I know that he was trapped in an attic for years, I know that he was isolated from his sister, I know that his family died in a fire that only he survived, I know that he loves open spaces and hates the dark, I know that he would accompany me wherever I go, I know that he loves reading and studying and, and, I know, I know, I know…

"Happy Birthday to you," sang the Jewells, as Shade beamed at his chocolate cake and multitudes of gifts, from neighbours, the Jewell's friends, and us of course, all wrapped up and filled with valuables like watches, designer clothes and leather bags. Peering around the table, I noticed that, besides dad and I, all the guests who were invited wore their smiles like a mask, especially Bright and Altezza, who hours ago had just expressed their contempt to the birthday boy.

A bunch of hypocrites, that's all they are, I thought. A bunch of hypocrites who only wanted to be in Shade's favour because he was rich and young and naive.

I know that I was all Shade had, and that he was all I had, and we had only each other to hold on to in the world.

We went to the park after dinner. Away from the gloss and the dazzle and the cheer, the park was by comparison a soothing cup of tea to the party's eight-course meal.

"God, that was a hassle," muttered Shade.

"They're just happy for you," I lied.

"Yeah right."

We were the only visitors to the park that night. Sitting on the bench, I leaned on his shoulder as he put his arm around me. In the height of summer, the air was heavy and damp, and I could feel his sharp shoulder blades beneath his flimsy T-shirt.

"I was thinking on the way back from the city, that now that I could support myself, financially, I was hoping that we could get out of here and really be together," he ventured.

I didn't understand.

"We could wait until you graduate, or even finish university, but I was thinking we could move to some other country, someplace away from all this misery, and really start our life together."

"What makes you think I'll come with you?" i resisted both the temptation to hold him tighter and shove him away, choosing to stand erect, stiffly, like a corpse.

"Well," he murmured in my ear with his suave, mellow voice. "I was hoping that you would marry me."

I know, I know, I know…somehow, these were the only words that echoed in my mind.

He continued, "I've been thinking these days, when you were away, how we're meant for each other. No matter how different we might be, I couldn't stand spending a day without you. I love you Fine. I want to be with you."

I tried to wriggle away from him, but to no avail. "We could buy a little flat halfway across the world, and stay there together for the rest of our lives, never coming back to this miserable place. You'd like that, wouldn't you? I know you would."

Deathly afraid, I tried to imagine how life with Shade would actually be like: the two of us living in our own apartment, coming home from work, laughing over dinner, snuggling in bed together, and someday, perhaps, children…And all the time, Altezza's suspicions whirling at the back of my mind.

"Why the hurry?" I asked.

"Why wait," he laughed. "Anyway, I'd like to be with you as soon as possible. Won't you?"

"Yes, but, but…halfway across the world?"

"I hate it here," Shade muttered darkly. "Don't you? It keeps reminding me of the fire—"

"Stop! Stop it!"

"People here don't like me. They don't really like me. I'd love to go away to somewhere faraway, somewhere that's isolated from the rest of the world. Wouldn't you be happy with that?"

"No, that's horrible."

"Think about it: new, friendly faces everywhere, beautiful scenery, just the two of us, with no one else to remind you of—"

Rein. Rein, Rein, Rein, Rein, Rein. Rein was everywhere here. Even when her name wasn't mentioned. Rein, Rein, Rein. The slides where she played, the school she attended, the room she lived in, the street that she passed by, the guy that she used to date. She was everywhere.

"Won't you rather live somewhere so you could put all that behind you?"

"Halfway across the world?" I squeaked.

"Someplace totally different from here, so you wouldn't wake up one day and think that you're still at home."

I thought and thought and thought. "Someplace quiet, someplace to start anew. A fresh start," he exhorted.

With my head on his shoulder, I breathed in his sweat and felt his glance trained upon my silhouette in anticipation. I imagined a cool summer night years in the future, with just the two of us, in our own place, without anyone's presence haunting us.

"Won't we feel lonely?"

"We might not be lonely for long," he smiled suggestively.

Snuggling further within his embrace, I had made up my mind.

"Fine? What do you think?"

I turned upwards to kiss him. "Yes."

Author's Note: I'm sorry if I seem to be rushing things, but I've pretty much got tired of writing this and will finish the story in two more chapters.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"It's a surprise, so don't tell anyone," Shade instructed.

"I know, but—"

"He'll argue against it if he finds out before it's too late."

"He's my dad, he should know."

"He'd try to take you away from here."

School was over, and Shade and I were discussing our plans to move out. He had already negotiated with a buyer for a small flat, and one of his father's old lawyers was preparing for a final contract. Understandably, we were waiting until I became of age to move away, perhaps on the pretence of finishing my education in another country, yet I wanted to come clean to dad once I had made my decision, while Shade preferred to stall and wait.

"Of course dad's going to be upset. I mean, he's just lost—" at this point, I stopped automatically before even realising what taboo I was in the verge of breaching.

"Eight months is more than enough for him to have healed," Shade argued.

it wasn't, I yearned to shout back. You don't know about nightmares and phantoms and sudden shocks. You don't know about dreaming of the fire, and Rein, and the charred body of the butler all in one blurry scene. You don't know about lying in bed in the middle of the night not wanting to sleep and not wanting to wake up either. I was just about to continue my ranting when I remembered what Altezza had said.

 _You don't even know him!_

 _Do you?_

The Shade I knew was always certain and confident, always with his head held above the waves, benign as though the world wasn't a complex arena where you had to negotiate and beg and argue to get your way. Besides his outburst at the restaurant where he learnt about the body near the mansion, he was the tranquil boulder that I could hold onto whenever I felt like collapsing.

I was so engrossed with my grief that I hadn't even considered the possibility that Shade might be experiencing the same thing. Might he not have nightmares in the middle of the night? Does he curl up on the sofa and avoid the day's work? But how could it be the same for him? He barely knew his family, he didn't even know they existed, how could he mourn for them like I do?

Eight months is more than enough. Was it more than enough for him?

"I want to leave here, Fine, I mean it," he whined. "I want to run away from all this, but I can't do it without you."

My face was reflected in his dark blue eyes, which were so focused upon me that they had no room to exude quality of their own. Once again, we were in my front yard, in danger of being seen by the Jewells if they, and my dad, hadn't left for work this morning. I had made sure that Bright and Altezza had driven away to Auler's place to ensure that there was no eavesdropping.

"Don't you want to meet him?" asked Altezza before she left. Smiling, I had shook my head, and exchanged glances with Shade, who was half-hidden by the living room drapes.

"I'm alright on my own. I might come on another day, but I've got things planned, with…with Chiffon."

She raised an eyebrow. "Ok." The truth was, it's been a while since I talked to her, or Lione, or Sophie, or even the football team, such that I could barely remember their voices. Altezza's raised eyebrow almost prompted me to actually phone Chiffon and tell her how much I missed her, but Shade intervened. As I hesitated between standing my ground and bolting for the phone in the livingroom, he clutched my wrist and reminded me of our date.

"Why the hurry? Can't you wait a few more years, for me?" I asked.

"A few more years? Here?" he said incredulously.

'It's not too bad."

"But think about how I feel, how I have to wake up and face the Jewells every day and be reminded of their charity."

"You could rent an apartment in the city, though."

"And be without you?"

I snatched my hand away from him as he reached for it. "Please," he whined again.

If Shade were gone…I imagined going to school without him, passing by the park alone, attending my exams without the assurance that I could look across the street and see the lamp illuminating his room.

Then my mind darted back to dad. Forlorn, wilting against the backdrop of the TV, a cup of coffee in his hand and some documents in another, sighing in an empty house. Wondering when he would see me again.

I couldn't do it.

That evening, I plucked up my courage to tell him. I really tried.

"Dad," I spoke testily, as he sat down on the sofa. We kept the TV at the lowest volumes at all times, so that it maintained as a low din, merely to distract us from the silence. Some reality TV show was being broadcasted, and neither of us were paying it any attention.

"Ready for your final school year?" he digressed.

"Uh, yeah. Kinda."

"Chosen a university yet?"

I winced at his questions. My grades, if they hadn't been disastrous already, had suffered tremendously ever since, and ever since I started skipping school to hang out with Shade. Ms. Tamba Rin had been remarkably sympathising, but not enough to let me off entirely. Fortunately, I had dextrously avoided the after-school tutorials that she had demanded, and later on even avoided seeing her entirely. I would've failed if Bright hadn't lent me his notes for the exam, and still would've flunked if some trickery hadn't been involved.

"How about the one in the city, where your mum and I went?"

Stop stop stop stop stop you can't mention her you can't bring her up you can't

"Ms. Tamba Rin called me to talk about your grades."

Managing to recover from my paralysis, I replied, "Yeah, did she?"

"She was quite optimistic about it, but when I told her to cut to the chase, she pretty much admitted that at this rate, you're only going to get to community college." For once, he turned off the TV. "Fine, I know you're still upset, but I don't want you to waste your future away because of it. I want you to work harder next year, and stop avoiding Ms. Tamba Rin for once."

I grunted in reply.

"And one thing: I'm sick and tired of you skipping school with Shade. Next year, I'm going to ask Bright to escort you to school, and I don't want you to spend anymore time with Shade. At least not until your exams are finished."

"But that's almost a year!"

"I wouldn't have to resort to this but you've left me no choice."

"That's so unfair!"

"I know you could do better than community college, Fine, and I want to see you do your best to get into a good school."

"Who says I have to get into university?"

"What do you mean?"

His shrewd eyes, torn away from the TV screen, narrowed as they observed my animated gestures. "I, I mean, like why not Lund Institute?" I said.

"I don't think I've heard of it before. Where is it?"

"Oh, it's, it's in another country, and, and I thought, perhaps, I could go abroad, and, and meet new people…" my voice faltered.

"And are you going alone?"

He knew. "Maybe?"

"And how about Shade?"

"…"

"And once you've gone, are you, are the two of you planning to stay there for, for how long? Are you going to come back?"

No, because, I rehearsed in my mind, because, because…

Because we wanted to escape this place.

Because we wanted to run away together

Because we can't be happy together here

Because, because, because

Frowning, dad bent forward to reach to his cup, and for an instant, I caught a glimpse of him years and years away in the future, a frail old man living alone in the house that used to host a happy family, now left to ruin. And I wouldn't be there for him, because Shade and I were living with a family of our own, miles and miles away, blissfully unaware of what was happening back here, just because we wanted to escape all this misery.

I couldn't do it.

"We just want to see the world together," I lied instead.

Heaving a sigh of relief, dad sipped his cup of coffee.

"I love him," I tried to reason, but even this excuse sounded feeble.

"Fine, I know Shade's not a bad person, but you're rushing into things. You're making decisions based on your feelings."

"And why not?"

"Because this isn't something trivial. This is your entire life you're gambling, and I'm not sure you're old enough or mature enough to decide that you want to be with him for the rest of your life, let alone give up your education for him."

"No, you just don't understand. You don't know him, you don't know our relationship, you don't even know me! I know that I'm not smart enough for university, I know that there isn't a point spending years studying for something I'm going to fail—"

"You're failing because you aren't trying hard enough!"

"Why are you trying to stop me from doing something I really want?"

"I know what I'm capable of," I said.

"Fine, I just want the best for you," dad sighed. "Just promise me you'll think things over instead of basing them on your impulses, okay?"

"Okay."

"Why don't you talk to Bright and Altezza about it? Ask them for advice?"

Ask the siblings, who were predisposed against Shade and would never agree to anything in his favour, for advice?

"Okay," I said. Content, dad turned the TV back on, glad to have avoided a full-scale dispute, and grunted at the reality show's latest drama. I considered dragging the topic back to what Shade and I had planned, but seeing dad in his woollen jumper on the sallow sofa, I shoved my speech to the back of my head and joined him.

I couldn't do it.

I tried once more, this time inviting Shade's help.

Dad would be home early that Friday, and Shade and I had spent the afternoon preparing a three-course dinner for the three of us, with salad, spaghetti and banana cake for dessert (recipe courtesy of Camelia Jewell). As I put the batter in the oven, I mulled over the argument that occurred in the living room just a few days ago.

"That should be ready in half an hour," Shade announced. For most of the afternoon, he distracted me with petty errands like collecting the rubbish bags and stirring the batter under his guidance, having been warned by the Jewells about my culinary skills. I was content with that, partly because it left me more time to rehearse my argument against the clearly loquacious Shade.

"Shade," I attempted.

"Hm?"

"I…"

"Do you want to talk about us moving out?"

"Kind of."

"…did you talk to your dad?"

"…kind of."

He huffed as the commercials aired on TV. I straightened up from my curled up position to face him. "Do we have to leave here?"

"I've explained to you—"

"Can't you wait until I finish university?"

"You can go someplace else."

"Yeah, but, I was thinking, since I've promised to be with you already, can't you wait a couple more years for us to actually move away?"

"Fine," he squirmed in his seat. "I've been wanting this for a while now. And you're asking me to wait again?"

"Just a couple more years, at most. Then I'll go with you. I promise, once I'm done here, I will go with you wherever you want to. Please, I just want to spend a few more years here with dad and Bright and everyone else."

"With Bright?" On purpose, he put his focus on the wrong subject.

"Not with him then, but with my family and Sophie and Chiffon and the others—I mean, I love you, but they're my friends as well."

"So you'd rather force me to stay here for years, in a place you know I hate, so that you could abandon me for university with your friends?"

"No! I don't mean that. You, you could go with us as well, you—"

"Fine, I can't stand it here. I especially can't stand being with the Jewells, they hate me, especially Bright, all of them."

"We could find a flat in the city together, ok? Can't you do that for me?"

"Great, wait a few years and find that you've met someone else and have decided that you don't want to run away with me anymore."

"What are you even talking about?"

Brooding over me, Shade put his hands on his hips. "You like Bright, don't you?"

"What? No!"

"You like him."

"I've been avoiding him deliberately ever since I found out he disliked you."

"No, you've been avoiding me recently. Annoyed with me now, are you? Bored? I've seen the way he looks at you, I've seen the two of you hang out together."

"He's an old friend of mine, and he's my neighbour, of course you've seen that happen."

"He used to date your sister, Fine. And you're okay with that?"

Don't mention her name don't mention her name don't mention her name

"He used to date Rein. That's it, Rein." He relished as I recoiled from the word. "Rein. Remember her? He reminds you of Rein, doesn't he?"

"Stop! stop stop stop!"

'This was why we wanted to leave. So you don't have to think about Rein all the time!" I covered my ears with my hands. Each syllable he uttered tore my old wound afresh: once again, I was helplessly trapped within the scene of the fire, on the first floor outside the guest bedroom, Rein standing in front of me as everything else burns on.

"God, you're such an idiot."

"Please, Shade, don't you trust me?" I was close to tears at this point.

"All my life I've been pushed around and left alone, and now that I'm free to do whatever I want it turns out I can't even make that happen!" he stormed out of the house.

"Wait, Shade, wait."

But he was out already.

Tears were drying upon my face, and as they stilled into limpid, crystal streams, they reflected the burst of colour of the TV ads, showcasing the latest children's toy in store. Shade had turned the corner and was ambling towards the park, as per usual. Don't leave me, I thought. Don't leave me in the mansion with my sister, don't leave me here where it burns like the oven and suffocates with smoke. I need you, I need you, I need you…

My vision was blurred when I turned to stare at the kitchen, where our dinner was laid out on the table. We were supposed to be happy. This was supposed to be my happy ending, with Shade by my side, the two of us eloping to a future where everything is bliss…

It took me a while to realise that actual smoke was billowing.

Smoke. Smoke.

Red and white and grey.

Breathe in the dust, breathe out a part of your life.

Breathe in the past. Breathe out the future.

Taste the dead and swallow the living all in one lick.

Swirling and fading and condensing near the ground,

Blinding and wounding and stabbing and healing…

I was at the mansion.

In front of me stood Rein.

I wanted to save her.

I reach out to touch her.

She turns around.

All of a sudden, she morphs into someone else. Her wavy blue hair recedes to its roots, her cerulean eyes darken into indigo, her round face sharpens and becomes angular, and her body unfolds into a lanky, towering man.

Shade stood in front of me in the fire.

Frozen to the spot due to the surprise, I observed in terror as, once recognised me for a stranger, his face stretched out into a grotesque grin, and he pushed past me down the stairs towards safety. Now alone, fire surrounded me, red upon red upon red, and I was finally confronted with the vision that had scarred me that day.

A corpulent man, having donned black sweatpants and a hoodie was writhing before me. His whole body was set ablaze: from his contorting face, his warped torso and his flailing limbs, not one part of him was spared. Only one part of him was still, though. His eyes, grey and hopeless, gazed straight ahead towards me, begging that I do something to save him. But both of us knew that neither of us could make it out of the fire. Neither of us would be alive by daylight.

As I mouthed an apology to him, his eyes became glossy, and then enlarged as though fermenting, and then popped out of his sockets like a cartoon character, and melted down his charred cheeks.

His final tears.

But I had made it out alive, miraculously. i had lived to tell the tale.

"Fine. Fine! Are you okay?" dad shook me, his face deathly pale.

The kitchen wasn't badly harmed, and the meal was salvageable. Still, dad took Shade and I out to dinner in the town centre and called insurance for an inspection tomorrow morning. "Don't make me worry like that, Fine," dad said.

Beyond his shoulder, Shade hovered by the main gates, guilty and apprehensive, not because he had started this fire, no, this one was caused by a broken toaster that I had, for some reason, plugged in.

No, he was guilty. Now that I had remembered what happened that night, things were beginning to click.

Peering over dad's shoulder and noting that Shade was averting his glance, I mouthed at him, "i know your secret."


	12. Chapter 12

I apologize if this seems rushed but I'm busy preparing for school and I'm publishing this much later than I expected.

Chapter 12

He had to pay.

He had to pay.

The thought pounded like a drum in my head. In the following days, its consistent rhythm began to merge with my heartbeat.

He had to pay.

But how?

He would never deny it. As usual, he would persuade me with his suave, sugary voice that he was perfectly innocent, and that I was perfectly wrong, and the best thing to do was what he had suggested, and that what I had planned would fail completely. I was beginning to recognise a pattern in our relationship. Whenever I veered off to talk about the fire, or something that conflicted with his intentions, he would drag me away with his wits and his exhortations and his charms. He even managed to manipulate me into thinking that I should run away to marry him. And like an idiot, I trusted him.

Reflecting on his cardinal rule, I finally understood. By banning any mentions of Rein, or the fire, or what I had seen, Shade had endeavoured to bury any residue memories of what I had witnessed. He had left me in the fire that night, hoping that I would have died, like Rein, like mum, like the butler he had pushed into the flames.

Miraculously, I had survived. I was the sole survivor of his deeds, and I was the one thing he didn't count on happening.

Mulling our relationship over in my head, I can't believe that I actually loved him. I can't believe that I actually let him forbid any mentioning of Rein.

Rein. Rein. I relished the monosyllabic word, letting it roll off my tongue like honey, breaking the taboo that had lasted for months. Rein. How could I ever have let him block you from my life! Rein, Rein, Rein. The word tasted like the bitterness of freedom. I would never, ever let you escape from my mind ever again.

She was what went through my head when I made my final decision. That morning, I had went through the caller history on the phone, and found the number that I was looking for. I only had to wait three rings.

"Hello?" I asked tentatively.

"Who is it?" asked the butler's daughter.

"It's, it's Fine. You called me some time ago to tell me about the dead body that's been found near the, the," say it, Fine! "the mansion."

"Oh, yes, I remember. Listen, now's not really a good time—"

"I just wanted to know if you've had any progress, on, on identifying him or his killer."

"Oh, um, let me see," I heard her pacing across the room. "Um, they've confirmed that he's the old man who lived near the mansion, but as to his killer, well, it's been months since he died, and having been dumped in the river, I don't think they've managed to gather much evidence. But they have dated his death to a short while after the fire, and that his killer was probably a left-handed man weighing about, god knows how heavy, and all the details. I think they're planning to questions Shade as well."

Left-handed. I struggled to recall whether the description fitted Shade, but decided that this could be easily confirmed.

"Yes, it's been big news in town, the Gazette's been going all crazy over the details…they say they're debating on whether Shade could be involved."

"Thank you," I said.

"Hang on…"

"Yes?"

"The dead man, they say he used to be the gardener or caretaker or something at the mansion when Shade was younger. Perhaps that's why they want him involved."

I see. Theories were beginning to formulate in my mind.

"But anyway, there's not much, and the Gazette's just grasping at straws. I could give you a copy of the latest articles if you want."

"No, that would be enough. Thank you."

"Bye."

I closed my eyes. It would be my word against Shade's, even if I told the truth to the authorities. And even if they could close the case upon Shade about the dead body, what would he get? A ten year sentence, maybe, and that's if they found the evidence to charge him.

No, that wouldn't be enough. Once again, Rein leapt into my mind. The way she would ogle over Bright, the way she would squeal at the cutest dress or the fashionable shoe, the way she would defend me regardless of how strong or how clever the enemy was, the way she would stand firm against adversity…My mind was suffused with blue.

Opening my eyes, I peered around the bare living room. No family photos were strewn across the mantle piece, and the walls were stripped bare. I had lost so much to Shade, but I wasn't going to let him win. And I wasn't going to let Rein down.

No, this time I would turn the tables. I would gain the upper hand.

My plan, like all of my other ones, was barely a plan. But it was, hopefully, enough.

"Hey," Shade greeted me. The afternoon sun pierced through the living room windows, and tore shards of light across the sofa. I threw a milk carton towards him, and he caught it in his left hand. Left hand. It meant nothing, but I made a mental note.

Dad wouldn't be back until dinner, and Bright and Altezza had already started school. Witnessing them filing out of their house in their freshly-ironed private school uniform made me nostalgic all of a sudden. The four of us used to walk together, until the road diverted and we split our ways to our respective schools. Yes, the four of us, Bright with Altezza, Rein with me, until Shade crashed into the scene and shattered our group.

Rein, Rein, Rein. I muttered the mantra beneath my breath. I didn't know how to face Shade at first. He had always commented on how I was terrible at hiding secrets, and was worried that, with one look, he could discern the root of my worries and my abnormal behaviour, and somehow talk me out of my plan.

Besides, there was always the possibility of me falling into pieces upon seeing him. Upon seeing the face of my sister's killer. Upon seeing the face of my lover.

Today, however, he was preoccupied.

"Don't mention her name," he snapped. He had heard my mantra, and I apologised in mock obedience.

"You seem to have a lot on your mind today.," I said.

"It's nothing."

"What? Tell me."

"It's just that, they've, the police's been wanting to interview me again."

I tried my best to look surprised. "Why?" I clasped my hands together. The blinding sunlight sparkled on the window, and I caught a glimpsed of my reflection. If Shade had stared at me then, he would have come face to face with the most dramatic and cartoony expression ever. Luckily, he merely furrowed his brows.

"Found the dead body of my old butler, they have."

"Butler?"

"The one we had before I shot, accidentally shot, my mother."

"Ah well. It's just an interview."

"Hopefully. They've caught up with me again, Fine. What should I do?"

I hummed in response. Feeling restless, Shade stood up and shut the blinds. "Oh goddamit, we're indoors, that's why. Come on, let's go out." I tried not to flinch when he held my hand. His warm, velvety touch, which I had so yearned for in the past few months, was now so repulsive that even I was shocked by the transformation.

"Actually," i took a deep breath as I executed my plan. "Actually, I was thinking of going for a ride."

Shade raised his eyebrow. "A ride? I didn't know you could drive."

I couldn't, technically. Last year, Rein and I had failed our driving test the second time. It wasn't that we could grasp the basic mechanisms of driving, it's just that there was always something to distract us from the task. For example, my last examiner could never pronounce the letter 's', and I had spent the whole drive giggling instead of paying attention to bumps, or focusing on not crashing into a tree. However, she still granted me my driving license. So there you have it.

"Dad took the bus and left the car. So it's free for us to use," I replied.

Shade gazed at the vehicle with obvious discomfort. "Do we have to? Like can't we take the train?"

"It's somewhere special where I'd like to show you, before school starts."

"I think I'd rather stay in the park."

"It's just a short drive.

"To where?"

"To…to…" my mind went blank. "It's a surprise."

"I hate cars. It's so stuffy on the inside." I did remember Shade's claustrophobia. That's partly why I planned on forcing him in the car.

"Well I like them," I lied. "And it's just a ride. You're not going to get hurt."

"I might if you're the one driving it," he teased. But he complied, and ducked into the tiny sedan.

We sped past the main road and onto the highway. My palms were already clammy from the heat, and now with Shade sitting by my side, drumming his fingers on his armrest and humming some undetectable tune, I realised how unprepared I was.

"So…mind telling me about the dead body?" I tried to ease myself into conversation.

"Yes. By the way, could you roll down the windows?"

"But I've turned the air con on."

"Hm."

I tried again. "So, have you been here before? Like when you were younger? Even younger?"

"Even if I had, I don't think I would remember."

"So you've only seen the town around your old home?"

"Fine, I said I was four when I was locked in the attic."

"You must be happy to leave."

"And be with you," he added, as he rested his hand on my arm. Somehow, this action paralysed my mind, and I racked my brain for something to add to it, only meeting with blankness.

So we drove on in silence. The highway extended miles and miles on end, and I knew that it would end at the southernmost city in the country, just near the coast, something I hoped Shade didn't realise. At this time of day, it was empty save for a few random trucks, and the expanse of the highway seemed to make him relax.

But the silence wouldn't serve my purpose. I knew I had him trapped within the car, and that he couldn't escape without hurting himself, yet luring him into revealing the truth wasn't my forte. Persuasion was Shade's tactic. And what was mine? I didn't know, but this wasn't it.

We paused at a conjunction. A dark blue truck rambled on before us, and I saw my face being reflected on the windshield. I was as pale as a phantom, and if I took my time, I knew I would break sooner or later.

It's now or never, Fine. "Shade, I—"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Huh?"

"For throwing a tantrum that night. For leaving you in the living room."

"Oh, uh, yeah, it's nothing."

"No it wasn't. I upset you and left you to yourself. I…I don't know how I could compensate for doing that."

"I'm ok, really." Even though anyone looking at me would know that I wasn't.

"No, no it's not. I love you, Fine, you know that right?"

"Uh huh."

"i promise that I would never hurt you like that ever again."

Do it now, Fine, confront him.

Yet his confession stirred something else within me. I love you, I love you…his words sounded so sincere, and I would do anything to hear his say that again. Suddenly, this image of us holding hands at the amusement park resurfaced after I had buried it with my desire for revenge, and the two conflicting images of Shade confused me. He killed my sister. And he loved me. Truly. Really. Did he?

This moment's hesitation costed me dearly. By the time the traffic flowed and snapped me out of my musings, Shade had changed the topic, and a bunch of angry drivers were at my tail. With a jerk, I launched the car forward.

"…and if we have a garden, we could build a swing together. That'd be great, wouldn't it? The first time we were alone, we were on the swings in the park. Don't you remember?" Shade said.

"You set the fire."

"The fire in your living room? That's caused by something wrong with the fuse."

"The fire in the mansion."

The sentence sprang off my tongue like a rocket being fired.

In a daze, Shade laughed in response. "Were you having one of your nightmares again?"

"No. it's true. It's all true, it's all happened." In a low voice, I related to him everything I remembered.

The highway now branched off. The car sidled towards the left, and from the corner of my eye, I could spot the grey horizon, and the dull waves beneath it.

Shade relished the silence that followed my explanation. "You were having a nightmare, that's all."

"I could tell the difference between my imagination and reality."

"Then how many nights did you call me to tell me that Rein was still alive and had plotted the whole thing?"

I flushed. "That was ages ago. I was confused back then."

"Just like you are now."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are. You're just wired up because of the fire that happened in your living room. What you've just told me is just a result of that."

"Stop trying to…to…I just, I know you set the fire. I saw you kill your old butler. And you probably killed the old man who witnessed everything, didn't you? That's why you were so nervous about the police coming to talk to you. You know they'd find out the truth."

Triumphantly, I peered at him through the mirror. His brows were furrowed, as he reorganised his tactics. I continued, "That's why you survived the fire. It wasn't a coincidence. Someone must have helped you escape the attic, I'm guessing the butler or the old man who died after the fire. Or maybe both. Then you set the fire, kill your accomplice, and hide yourself within the rubble, pretending to be the miracle of the town. The boy who survived while the others perished. And there were no witnesses, no one who could disprove you, because all the others were dead. And you thought, with your inheritance, you could…you could live happily ever after without the guilt of doing something so horrible, but then I survived as well. And I might have seen something that you've done, something terrible, so you've spent all these months making me confide in you, making sure that there're no loose ends. You even wanted me to follow you to some, some quiet, isolated town abroad, where no one could find me and help me, and I couldn't tell anyone about what an evil person you are because no one would believe me. Well you've failed. You could've succeeded if I didn't remember anything, but you've failed."

You've done it, Fine, I thought as tears of pride brimmed. I could almost feel Rein's voice thanking me for revealing the culprit, for avenging her untimely death. Rein, oh Rein, I'm sorry it took so long, but I've done it.

I eyed the next junction. If I had remembered correctly, one of them turned towards the seaside town where Rein and I had visited once. As for the other, it veered straight towards the cliff, where only a wooden fence, damp from rain and humidity, protected vacationers from falling to the rocks.

Shade spoke. "The old man whose body he found, Thompson, he used to take care of me when I was younger. He was the one who reached me first after my mother's death. Father fired him eventually, but Thompson always wanted to rescue me." Shade buried his face in his hands.

"You had no idea," he said. "How lonely I felt in the attic. Only Thompson was there, if he managed to sneak out, to talk to me, to teach me how to read and write. I could've gone mad if it weren't for the fire. I hated it so much. Fine, don't you understand, I don't want to be imprisoned ever again." He pounded at the car windows, and, distracted, I turned left and missed the path towards the cliff.

"All I wanted was to be out and about," he gasped. "And be free. There were times, when even that was so unattainable that I tried to end my life. I ran into the wall and tried to break my neck, but Thompson always nursed me back to health. That's why he was so determined to rescue me.

When he learnt that visitors were arriving, he was thrilled. He thought, if he managed to break me out, either you or Bright's family could sympathise with me and take me in. Imagine how happy I was, Fine! Free at last."

Half listening to his speech, I frantically recalled the road towards the seaside town. It stretched across a rocky terrain, until it smoothly descends onto the sand, but if I wasn't mistaken, there's also a narrower section surrounded by boulders.

Shade went on. "I just wanted to leave. I didn't want to hurt anyone. But when I saw how the butler had set fire to my house, my home, even if it was a miserable home for so long, I couldn't help it. All my hatred and anger I've suppressed for all those years, well, I vented them all on him. I pushed him into the fire. That's all I did, Fine. I didn't start the fire. But I did kill him."

"You're lying."

"It's the truth. It's my side of the story."

Instantly, Rein's presence vanished from my side. "But, but why didn't you tell me that? Why did you have to lie and lie and lie?"

"Thompson was dead by the time I arrived at the hospital. How would it sound if the police knew I was associated with him all these years? Besides, I did commit a crime. I don't want to move from one prison to another. Fine," his voice soften, and I winced at the tone. "Please believe in me."

"You never tell me the entire story. There's always a catch. There's always a lie hidden there."

"Well there isn't this time. This is the truth. This is my truth."

We were across the rocky terrain. I had only seconds to determine whether or not to trust him, and my mind was filled with voices shouting contradictions towards each other.

Liar!

Not!

He's sincere. He loves you.

He killed Rein!

He didn't!

He might have!

What if he didn't?

What if he did?

I concentrated on the boulders ahead of me. If what Shade said was the truth, then the culprit had perished in the fire already, and he was the one who killed him. Shade was the one who avenged Rein.

And if he was lying?

The blue-haired boy stared intently at me. I slowed the car. Shade gazed right into my eyes, begging for my trust. Blue upon red. Red upon blue. Again I conjured up that sweet, sweet moment on the bench in the amusement park, on my front yard in the afternoon, the many moments in the park, where I gazed lovingly back into his eyes. Suddenly, my memory shifted. The eyes that I sought after in my mind weren't Shade's dark indigo ones. They were the cobalt eyes belonging to Rein, the colour of the sky, reminding me that I wasn't alone.

I couldn't risk disappointing her.

The car sped up. Gripping the steering wheel, I slammed my foot down on the pedal, and watched the pointer rotate to 40, 50, then 70. At the last moment, I turned the wheel and aimed the car slightly towards the left. There was no turning back now, and even Shade could see it. The bumper of the car drove directly into the nearest boulder, which jutted out slightly into the edge of the road, as though taunting us. During my last moments, I tried to picture Rein, how her eyes would gleam and her smile would sparkle. But I only managed to think of Shade, and how it felt when he kissed me.

"Fine!" Shade lunged at me. And then the car crashed.

I know I said 'two more chapters', but I've decided to add an epilogue as well.


	13. Chapter 13

Epilogue

Once again, we were in the newspapers.

This time, however, we were assigned an even smaller article—three sentences amongst a column filled with the latest tragedies that were not important enough to deserve the public's attention.

'Two teenagers were involved in a car crash yesterday at Ridgestone town. The boy, aged eighteen, died immediately, and the girl, aged seventeen, is recovering in hospital. The pair were survivors of a fire earlier this January.'

The road where we crashed was rarely frequented by visitors, and after a temporary shutdown, it was re-opened for public use several hours later, after all the wreckage was cleared away.

Shade jumped between me and the dashboard at the last minute. Him, and the airbag, saved me from the worst of the damage. Several broken ribs, a fractured skull, a broken arm, and weeks of hospital were all I received as a consequence. Shade was not so lucky.

Of course, I didn't know about all that until later.

Dad stopped visiting me for a couple of days, after the fear and depression wore off, and the spite kicked in. "I could've lost you," he shouted at me once. "What were you thinking, Fine? Why were you so reckless?"

He sent flowers, though, and cakes, through Bright and Altezza, so I hoped that he had forgiven me. The truth is, that I was so consumed with Rein, that I scarcely had time to think about anyone else. Not dad, not Bright, not even myself. All my energies between the day I discovered the truth and the car crash, all were focused on one thing only: revenge. In fact, if I'm honest, my whole existence since the fire centred around one person only: Rein.

Bright gradually accumulated the habit of visiting me after school. The first few days, he would just sit beside me sullenly, while finishing his homework. His refusal to even stare at me annoyed Altezza, and under her forceful guidance, we started to talk to each other. I doubt that Altezza is pleased with her results now. Bright has been spending so much time at the hospital, he often eats his dinner there before going home. If it weren't for curfew, he would've brought a sleeping bag along and stayed there for the night. Occasionally, Altezza would call and complain about her older brother's new habit, and we would just smile.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Huh?" we were chatting over the cheesecake he had bought from the new bakery that afternoon.

"You probably didn't realise it, but, but all this time, I've been treating you as a replacement for Rein."

Guilty, I hunched over my slice of cake. He said, "I couldn't bear with it when she died. And I thought, I thought that the two of you were so similar, maybe, maybe we could continue what Rein and I had. When you started going out with Shade, I kept brooding because I felt so jealous, even though I knew that deep down, I wasn't in love with you. It wasn't until the car crash happened, and I heard that you might not make it through, did I realise, well, first of all, you aren't Rein. And second of all, maybe there's a small part of me that does care about you, much much more than I had previously imagined."

I remained silent. Now that I recall, how often did I look into Shade's eyes, and tried to find Rein in them? How often did I accompany him, just because he looked like Rein? Even after I had first kissed him, I was disappointed to see that it was Shade beside me, and not Rein. All this time, I had been tortured by my paradoxical feelings, that on one hand wanted to banish Rein from my mind, and on the other hand, sought her out wherever I went. I hated and loved the perfume she wore, so much that I kept it. I hated and loved the boy she had dated, and so I kept my distance whilst I yearned for companions. As for Shade, entangled with me, yet so unfamiliar, I wanted to mould him into Rein's substitute, and had loved him for it.

Thinking back, I doubted whether I really loved him. He was handsome, considerate, and above all, he was in my eyes, Rein. Yet would I have loved him if it weren't for our connection? I had searched for proofs that we were meant to be, and yet…

And yet he had protected me. He had jumped in front of me to shield me from the dashboard.

Perhaps he really loved me. Perhaps that was true.

And if that was true, what else was? Was his explanation concerning the fire authentic at all? Was he really innocent of any crime? And if so, was I wrong?

All these questions confused me, so I tried my best to cast them away. Except of course, my new therapist has the habit of asking me to revive my trauma. Like the one Ms. Tamba Rin had introduced to me, this new therapist has asked me to picture the worst, and to distance myself from it. Dad insisted on the therapist this time. "You clearly need one," he claimed, despite my protests. "If you go around crashing cars and harming yourself. I'm ending this now."

I'm not sure how successful I am in recovering, but I've stopped seeing Rein everywhere I go. And surprisingly, Shade hasn't been joining her in my nightmares, so that's a relief.

Noting that Bright wanted a reply to his confession, I said, "We've been both looking for substitutes in each other." He was satisfied with that.

When Bright was away, and dad was at work, I was generally left alone. I had all the time to think about what I had done, and about Shade, and about Rein. I was surprised at how little I could remember about Shade, even though I had spent the last eight months with him. There were photos of him, and receipts to restaurants we had visited, and his clothes at the Jewell household, yet I remembered so little of him. The sound of his laughter, which I used to recall at nights to lull myself to sleep, were barely discernible from the hundreds of different laughters I hear on TV. His stature, which I thought was so manly,

could be as stooped as an old man's for all that I care.

He was like a phantom that had slipped away once I ceased to believe in him, and after a few years, I might even start to forget that he had haunted me.

The only thing i could remember accurately were his eyes. The shape, the colour, the pride and the ruthlessness within, all those were indelible. In fact, I managed to convince Mirlo, an art student at school, to draw them for me as I described them. I keep the painting at the bottom of my little drawer.

These eight months with Shade Deluna had passed by like a dream. When I leave the hospital, I'd be preparing for my final exams, as though nothing had happened. Even school work, which I've generally left behind, was slowly returning back to normal, now that Bright was bringing his exercise books to the hospital as well.

It's all over. They had buried Shade back at his hometown, next to his mother's tomb. I didn't even need to attend the funeral, and if I didn't even bother, I don't need to see his tombstone either. All my days with Shade had ended, and it's time to wake up.

The lights in the hospital corridor were closed. Discreetly, I opened my drawer and felt for the painting of Shade's eyes. I knew instinctively that they would appear in my dreams tonight, but I couldn't find it in the dark. Maybe it had crumpled up beneath some hat or book. I don't know. I didn't bother to look further. I didn't matter. I could always find it tomorrow, and if I had lost it, I could always ask for another one.

"Sweet dreams," I whispered to myself. I closed my eyes.

-The end-


End file.
